From the President: Geo-graphing Uzbek U.S. Fundamentalism

By Dr. Chris Seiple on 06 April 2004

Tashkent, Uzbekistan -- He was 19 years old. His English was flawless. And he was right.

"Mr. Seiple, American policy in Central Asia and around the world is a kind of 'democratic fundamentalism.' You have a global ideology that does not account for regional particularities. The collapse of the Soviet Union means your power is unchecked and that you can act unilaterally."

I had been asked by my friend, Dr. Ulugbeg Khassanoff, to address his geopolitics class at the University of World Economy & Diplomacy (UWED) this past Saturday. UWED's international relations department uses geopolitics as the framework to teach about and comprehend the world and its complexities. At its most intellectually vibrant, geopolitics is a holistic understanding of the world and the complex interrelationships between hard power (e.g., military, geography, and economics) and soft power (e.g., ideas, values, and culture). It demands that its practitioners be able to map, or "geo-graph," the psychological and physical views of the world, "ours" and "theirs."

Geo-graphing the geopolitical, democratic and secular fundamentalisms of the Uzbek and U.S. governments enables both to engage the world as it actually is. More specifically, it points them toward the necessary acceptance of religion as a legitimate component of analysis, strategy, and policy.

Geopolitical Fundamentalism

At its best, contemporary geopolitics seeks to synthesize and balance the multiple dimensions of power. But too often, especially in the context of Central Asia, it has had a preoccupation with hard power. This is perhaps understandable, for imperial elbows have bumped and jostled in Central Asia for many centuries--Alexander, the Chinese, the Mongols, the Iranians, the Russians, the British, and now the Americans have vied for influence over, if not possession of, Central Asia.

This defensive sense of geopolitical "realism" drives the Uzbek government, internally and externally, to pursue the highest end of geopolitical fundamentalism: stability. Externally, it sees American influence in the region as a means to balance Russia and China. Internally, it represses anything that threatens (or is perceived to potentially threaten) control. The repression of pious Muslims in the name of national security, for example, is first a control issue before it is a religious freedom issue. (There are some 7,000 Uzbeks in jail for allegedly being members of banned Islamic radical groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Torture is systematic).

Internally, Uzbek officials are very much afraid of the perceived role that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as George Soros' "Open Society" Foundation and the USAID-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI) played in Eduard Shevardnadze's fall from power in Georgia. Fearful of a "Rose Revolution" in Uzbekistan, the government recently moved quickly to ban these NGOs in Tashkent (that is, until they found out that such long-time supporters of Uzbek engagement as John McCain and Madeleine Albright were on the boards of IRI and NDI, respectively).

Not sure of American long-term support amidst this possibility--as well as uncertainty over upcoming U.S. decisions about religious freedom sanctions, and over the American elections this November--Uzbekistan has begun a rapprochement with Russia (which does not care about Uzbekistan's internal affairs). Seeing a chance to reassert it influence with its most wayward former republic, Moscow quickly offered its counterterrorism support to Tashkent after last week's terrorist
attacks.

If hard power is your only understanding of the world, then these
kinds of Machiavellian twists and turns are a paranoid par for the course. Needless to say, there is not much room for the "soft power" of ideas and values.

Democratic Fundamentalism

In contrast to the Uzbeks' geopolitical fundamentalism, the Americans' democratic fundamentalism ignores hard power. And, worse, it also ignores regional and cultural realities, benevolently if naively seeking to help people around the world understand an American conception of universal human rights. Read almost any American document, governmental or non-governmental, from the 1990s regarding the development of "civil society" in Central Asia, and you detect a cookie-cutter, regional approach where civil society is thought of as simply having more NGOs. Country-specific approaches have been too infrequent. In the case of Uzbekistan, there has been little acknowledgement of the tolerant and community-based Uzbek society that already existed.

Another example is religious freedom. Americans pay lip service to it but don't know how to operationalize it, except to threaten sanctions. We punish because we do not know how to promote. Americans are just not good at finding, and enabling, culturally congruent forms of universal values, and this has been a detriment to the U.S.-Uzbek relationship. The sad irony is that a "democratic fundamentalist" approach to values endangers both our values and interests.

These failings are not helped by our current credibility gap, as my Internet-reading class at UWED reminded me. This class wanted to know why America lied about the WMD in Iraq; why we hold almost 600 people at Guantanamo; and why we are not even-handed in our approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These observations were not made against the U.S.; they were earnest and articulate attempts by future leaders to understand the inconsistencies of American foreign policy. Where is the value in American values if they amount to just another fundamentalism? Worse, why bother if values apparently give way to "hard power" whenever push comes to shove? (Say what you want about Uzbek policies, foreign and domestic, but they are geopolitically consistent, even predictable).

What makes geopolitical and democratic fundamentalism so interesting, however, is that they share a common trait. They are both, ironically, secular. As a result, they both have little influence on the course of events in this part of the world because there are no philosophical or practical mechanisms for realistically addressing the religious component of global engagement.

Secular Fundamentalism

Ninety percent of Uzbeks believe in Allah. Ninety percent of Americans believe in God. Both societies have a historic and practical sense of tolerance and respect. Yet in each case, the state forgets society, ignoring at its peril the inherent moral structure of their citizens' geo-graph of the world. This is not to promote proselytizing or any establishment of religion; it is only to suggest that religion is a legitimate and pervading factor of analysis in the understanding of a problem, and thus of its solution.

Consider the recent terrorism here in Uzbekistan. While accounts vary--as they often do in a country where rumor verifies rumor--it seems that the attacks of the past week were homegrown, and not necessarily the responsibility of local radical groups, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or Hizb-ut-Tahrir (groups that, respectively, have called for the overthrow of the Tashkent regime, the former advocating violence, the latter, seemingly non-violence). The government crackdown on these groups, I believe, has now created two effects.

First, those who have experienced jail, personally or through a family or community member, feel that they have nothing to lose. These people, with good reason, hate the government and are now willing to do anything to hurt it. The attacks last week (some of which may not have been reported) were all designed to kill government officials (the Madrid bombings, by comparison, targeted civilians). The Chorsu Bazaar attack, for example, took place on Monday, when the bazaar is closed and at a time when only police would be there.

Mao Tse-Tung once said that "as the fish is to the sea, so is the insurgent to the people." The repression of innocent people--combined with rampant corruption and a lack of jobs--is now creating a sea in which any insurgent might swim; even insurgents based in radical Islam, which is alien to this tolerant society.

The answer is to encourage a national dialogue that emphasizes Uzbekistan's tolerant history and the inclusivity of Islam, especially the compassion to which Allah calls all Muslims. Unfortunately, the government is taking a very different tack: it is trying to control Islam through the state-sponsored mosques, providing the sermon for Friday prayers across the country. This governmental dike will not hold back a rising sea.

American policy, despite its words, has not helped much either. This is not necessarily a function of particular people, but a reflection of democratic fundamentalism, a philosophy too-long ingrained. "The sweet dream of American political thought--reborn in each generation, it seems--is that cultural factors like religion will shrink into insignificance as blessed pragmatism finally comes into its own." We have separated church and state in the name of good governance, with good result, but when we separate religion from our analysis we reduce our ability to geo-graph Central Asia as the people who live there do.

This mentality is reflected in our approach to counterterrorism. Not unlike Uzbekistan, U.S. counterterrorism strategy has been obsessed by physical security, with a focus on "gates, guns and guards." Our analysis, meanwhile, has begun to address radical Islam, but only as an ideology. An important step, ideological analysis will name the dynamics of the threat we face. But it cannot provide sustainable solutions. To do that, our analysis must also understand Islam as a faith and a religion. We cannot provide solutions if we don't know which questions to ask--and ask we must, for only Islam can correct itself.

The awareness that we need a new approach has managed to establish a beachhead. Donald Rumsfeld noted last fall that America has made "relatively little effort" to develop a "long-range plan" with appropriate "metrics" to gauge success in the war against the terrorists. Toward this end, he mused that the U.S. should create a "private foundation to entice" Islamic seminaries in Central and South Asia (madrassas) to take "a more moderate course." It is this kind of thinking that will help us to get the questions right. Then, perhaps, we might have long-term, sustainable solutions, rooted in the best our faiths have to offer, instead of defending against the worst each has done.

Moving Ahead

The U.S. and Uzbek governments need to incorporate their social values into state policy. Again, this is not to advocate proselytizing or any establishment of religion but to suggest that religion is a legitimate realpolitik factor that must be addressed in the conception and implementation of policy. In other words, we have tomake the "soft" issues of religion and religious freedom "hard." Practically speaking, if such issues and approaches are to have any enduring effect within our respective governmental processes, they will have to come from traditionally hard-power platforms.

In the United States, we must find a way to operationalize our democratic values in a geopolitical manner that reflects the religious reality of our world. Our regional counterterrorism strategies around the world, for example, should include the consideration of religion in a practical way. If we are to "diminish" the threat of radical Islam, as our national counterterrorism strategy suggests, it only makes sense that we find ways to work with Muslims and promote the best of Islam, especially as a country that is perceived to be Christian and unilateral. Such an approach might include the sponsoring of a conference by Central Command on religious freedom and stability in Uzbekistan.

In Uzbekistan, two tasks are appropriate and immediate. First, improvements in the freedom of press would serve as a sort of safety valve for political grievances. If people can talk about it, then the pervading tension will immediately dissipate a level or two. More specifically, there should be a national dialogue about religious freedom on TV. Importantly, it does not matter if the term "religious freedom" is ever used, only that an Uzbek form of honest dialogue take place regarding radical Islam and its repression. Second, the Uzbek government should implement the UN's plan to stop torture in Uzbek jails and it should reform its May 1998 "religious freedom" law (in accordance with the recommendations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), actions to which the Uzbek government has already agreed.

These steps should be geopolitically urgent matters. Unless they are meaningfully implemented, Uzbekistan will lose its financial support from the international community. Today, for example, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development will vote whether or not to extend Uzbekistan its loans. Later this spring and fall, the U.S. will decide whether or not to: a) designate Uzbekistan a "country of particular concern" for its religious freedom violations and b) certify Uzbekistan such that it might receive additional funding from the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act for this fiscal year.

Given these competing fundamentalisms, it would be easy for Uzbekistan and/or the United States to disengage from each other. We should not allow this to happen. My UWED students, who admired America openly, simply asked that we understand the particularity of Central Asia and Uzbekistan. They did not ask, or expect, us to change. Now is the time for honest discussion and disagreement. If we can better understand how we each geo-graph the world, then maybe we'll learn something about our own worldview as a result.

And just maybe, we'll begin to develop a joint vision for the region that includes religion in its analysis while providing for a culturally congruent form of religious freedom. With this kind of state policy, reflective of their respective societies, these two governments might achieve that which they long for most: stability.
 

Last updated 15 September 2008