Tag Archives: society

Language and identity change in Kazakhstan

ALMATY/Kazakhstan, SEPT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The conversation, and the coffee, flowed freely in this café in the centre of Kazakhstan’s financial capital that is popular with students and intelligentsia types. The language, too, was fluid and the speakers switch causally between Kazakh and English.

Amantai, a 21-year old student, had been listening to the conversation.

“I’ve heard you guys speak interchangeably in Kazakh and English,” he said. “You haven’t used a single word of Russian.”

Russian didn’t have a place at this table of young, educated Kazakhs. In the wider context, as Kazakhs grow more aware of their statehood and less attached to the notion of the Soviet Union, the Russian language is being displaced.

Amantai was from a village outside of Almaty. He had moved to study economics at the Kazakh- British Technical University. He had studied hard to reach the level of English that was required to enroll.

Even though for Amantai Kazakh was not necessary to study economics he still preferred to use it in public over Russian.

Another of the young Kazakh men sitting around the table explained.

“It’s up to the new generation to turn our mother tongue into a language that can be spoken in every instance of one’s life,” he said.

A decade ago this scene would not have unfolded in Almaty. Until recently Russian dominated Kazakhstan’s business and political elite. Kazakh was spoken just by villagers and not in the cities.

That, though, has changed with President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s various nation building schemes and with the influx of people to Almaty and other cities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)

Uzbekistan wants migrants to return

SEPT 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Regions across Uzbekistan have started work on a government edict to try and lure the thousands of Uzbeks working abroad back home, even though the economy is looking decidedly dodgy and the chances of full time employment are low.

Uznews.net, an Uzbek opposition website, reported that Samarkand, the second largest city in the country, has proposed all migrants who return will get given a job.

“I witnessed people like myself being forced to live a nomadic life in dirty conditions, without rights in a foreign land,” the website reported one Samarkand resident as saying in a propaganda drive.

“If we were to work as hard at home as we work in Russia, we would make good money.”

The drive to persuade migrants to return to Uzbekistan apparently came in July from Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

It also coincided with news that Russia was going to make it more difficult for migrants to enter and also that the sanctions imposed on Russia since fighting in Ukraine started has reduced demand for casual migrant workers. This may have dampened demand for migrants from Central Asia who would typically do the cleaning and building jobs around Moscow and other large Russian cities.

Even so, Uzbekistan relies heavily on remittances from workers based in Russia and working on a campaign to encourage them back home is likely to be counter- productive.

Uzbekistan has plenty of infrastructure of its own to deal with, including crumbling road, rail and power networks, so, possibly, calling on more people to move back to Uzbekistan is counter productive.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)

Uzbek President dances

SEPT.1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps to prove his virility and good health, Uzbek president Islam Karimov danced with various other officials in public on Independence Day. The 76-year-old Mr Karimov has been the centre of much speculation over his health during the last few years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)

Yezedis rally in Armenia

AUG. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Members of Armenia’s Yezedi community have been holding protests in Yerevan calling for more support to stop the attacks by them in Iraq. Armenia is home to around 50,000 Yezedi, one of the largest groups outside Iraq. Fighters from the Islamic State have been attacking and killing Yezedi members.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)

Protesting against Uzbek cotton

AUG. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – People protesting against the alleged use of child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields have targeted South Korea’s Daewoo International Corporation, media reported. According to demonstrators Daewoo buys 5% of Uzbekistan’s cotton. The protests are a reminder of just how sensitive the use of Uzbek cotton is in western clothing.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 196, published on Aug. 20 2014)

Uzbek paintings go missing

AUG.11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sixty paintings by Uzbekistan’s Victor Ufimtsev, considered one of the masters of the mid-20th century futurist movement, have been lost or been stolen, an Uzbek opposition website reported. Opposition members in Uzbekistan have previously alleged that members of the Uzbek elite have stolen the paintings.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 195, published on Aug. 13 2014)

Armenian priest attacked in TBI

JULY 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A crowd of up to 50 people in Tbilisi reportedly attacked and beat an Armenian priest outside an Armenian Cathedral, media said. They reported that the trigger for the attack was an argument over parking. Armenia has called for an immediate investigation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Rakhmon’s hometown bias irritates Tajiks

DANGHARA/Tajikistan JULY 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — To passersby this town of 25,000 people south east of Dushanbe, is indistinguishable from any other poor Tajik settlement.

On one side of the drag running through its centre there is a crowded but limited bazaar, hawking cheap products from China. On the other, the standard array of grocery stores with little to sell and taxi drivers waiting for non-existent customers.

But Danghara is an important part of impoverished Tajikistan’s political vocabulary. The town’s most famous son, Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon, stuffs his government with people from Danghara and its eponymous district.

Making up only 1% of the total population of Tajikistan, Dangharans nevertheless head the ministries of education, health and internal affairs. The first Deputy Prime Minister is also Danghara-born.

“Half of Danghara has already moved to Dushanbe,” said Daler Khalidoev, a courier who lives in the capital but comes from Khujand. “They still smell of the village.”

Since Soviet times, regional divisions have plagued Tajikistan. Back then most of the local elite were plucked from Leninabad region (now Khojand) in the north, now it seems that Dangharans are in favour.

At Mr Rakhmon’s encouragement international organizations have built and equipped Danghara general hospital, one of the best in the country, at a cost of roughly $20m. The newly created Danghara Free Economic Zone 10km outside the city, will host strategic investments such as an Iranian detergent factory worth $1.4b and a Chinese oil refinery that will refine over 1m tonnes of crude per year.

“(It’s) jobs for his people,” said Khalidoev, the courier from Khojand.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

F1 coming to Azerbaijan

JULY 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan confirmed it would host a Formula 1 Grand Prix race in 2016. Hosting an F1 race is a huge PR success for Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev who has been looking for ways to promote the country. Next year, Azerbaijan hosts the inaugural European Games.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Berdy statues to appear in Turkmenistan

JULY 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – There was a very strong sense of déjà vu around an official Turkmen government announcement this month. Media reported that the Turkmen government had announced that it would build a statue to the current president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

When he took over the presidency in 2007 from Saparmurat Niyazov, the first president of post-Soviet Turkmenistan, one of his first stated actions with to dismantle the personality cult his predecessor had built up. This included a gold statue of Niyazov built on an enormous plinth in the centre of Ashgabat.

International observers also cheered when he started to open Turkmenistan up to foreign investment. It is now one of the region’s major gas producers, a position it should strengthen further over the next few years.

There have, though, been increasingly strong signals that Mr Berdymukhamedov also wants to build up a personality cult of his own and that worried observers.

He has been shown on state television berating hapless officials, he makes sure that he wins Turkmenistan’s most important horse race each year and now, it appears, he has authorised a statue of himself.

Foreign minister Kasymkuly Babayev was shown on state television giving a tour of the construction site to Mr Berdymukahmedov. He addressed Mr Berdymukhamedov by his preferred moniker of Arkadag, or Protector.

“In the name of the people of the country, of the leaders of (state) structures, (we) appeal to the head of state to decide to establish on one of the beautiful corners of Turkmenistan’s capital, a monument to President Arkadag,” media quoted him as saying. This all sounds very familiar.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)