[socialactionfoundationforequity:2411 Uzbekistan's threatened cultural legacy

[Avnish Jolly]

Uzbekistan's threatened cultural legacy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/15/uzbekistan-cultural-legacy-threatened

A clampdown on Uzbek intelligentsia and civil society is compromising
the socio-cultural evolution of the country

Sonia Zilberman
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 April 2010 15.00 BST
Article history
One of the most totalitarian and repressive countries in the world is
trying to form its own definition of cultural progress. Recently, the
authorities in Uzbekistan have been arresting not only human rights
activists, but also religious minorities, artists and health
practitioners on the grounds of "disrespecting Uzbek culture and
people".

This begs the very basic question, what is culture? One of the most
accepted definitions, found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, defines
culture as "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and
behaviour that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting
knowledge to succeeding generations."

Historically, this pattern for the transmission of knowledge in
Uzbekistan has been incredibly rich. An important location on the Silk
Road route, the territory of Uzbekistan has been home to artists and
spiritual leaders such as Alisher Navoi (15th century), famous for the
cyclical collection of poems, The Hamsa; historians such as Abu Rayhan
al-Bruni (11th century) who wrote a pioneering study on India; and
leading medics like Ibn Sina (11th century), who wrote The Cannon of
Medicine. Once porous to the ideas and information that the Silk Road
carried, the World Heritage Site cities of Buhkara and Samarkand
attest to the fact that Uzbekistan was a land where ideas were born
and arts flourished: a haven for intellectuals.

Since President Karimov came to power in 1991, however, Uzbek
intelligentsia has been virtually deprived of the freedoms inherent to
cultural development. Citizens cannot form associations without prior
approval from the government, which is often restricted on a number of
politically motivated grounds. Since the Andjian Massacre of 2005,
where the government opened fire on protesters and killed as many as
500 people, more than 300 NGOs have been forced to close operations.
And this is despite the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, protecting the freedom of association, was the first
international legal document which Uzbekistan signed after proclaiming
independence.

The legal barrier to freedom of association restricts the ability of
groups of people to form organisations which can receive grants,
conduct activities, and express a collective voice and positions on
issues ranging from government elections to healthcare to gardening.
Numerous religious minorities such as the Hare Krishnas, Baptists, and
even minority Islamic sects have been refused registration again and
again, essentially prohibiting alternative spiritual development in
the country.

Besides restricting the development of collective thought and action,
the Karimov regime has kept tight reins on the type of information
which can flow inside the country. The media is fully censored, and
websites such as the BBC World Service and Wordpress are unavailable,
making it extremely difficult for Uzbek citizens to exchange
information with the outside world. Even inside the country, the media
is forced to practice a form of self-censorship, muting any remotely
oppositional positions for fear of closure and arrest. Any perceived
political opposition is subject to heavy surveillance, arbitrary short-
term house arrest, and compromise of phone lines and email inboxes.

In the past year, persecution of independent thought has spread over
into non-political spheres. One no longer needs to be in opposition to
the government to fear persecution. It is enough to be in some way
perceived to be in opposition to the culture of Uzbekistan, to be
viewed as enemy of the state. Recently, the arrests of an ethnological
photographer and sex education worker on such grounds have
demonstrated that the culture of contemporary Uzbekistan has no space
for the flow of new information or generation of knowledge for the
improvement of future generations.

A clear example of this is the case of Umida Akhmedova. In February
2010, Akhmedova, an Uzbek photographer, was found guilty of "libel"
and "insult" charges for her photographic and cinematographic work
documenting the lives and culture of the Uzbek people. Her works
featured the Uzbek countryside, contrasts between the modern and
traditional, and life in the streets. The court decided, with the help
of "expert testimonies", that her art essentially did not portray the
country in the right way. Although Umida was granted presidential
amnesty, in large due to international pressure, the verdict set a new
precedent for the Uzbek intelligentsia. No longer can artists exercise
their freedom of expression without an overarching fear that the
government may decide that their work is "insulting" to the culture of
Uzbekistan, and therefore grounds for imprisonment.

In another case, a health practitioner, Maksim Popov was sentenced to
seven years in prison apparently as punishment for his work to raise
public awareness on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases
and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. Popov was the leader of NGO
Izis, which focuses on work with drug addicts, sex workers and on HIV
prevention. He is also the author of the book HIV and Aids Today,
which was published with the support of Unicef and Population Services
International. This book, explaining STD prevention, was deemed
"illegal" by the criminal court of Tashkent, based on the findings of
a commission of experts that it is disrespectful to the national
culture and the Uzbek people.

These examples are indicative not only of the fact that the clampdown
on civil society in Uzbekistan is increasing in both severity and
breadth, but also that this form of repression is compromising the
socio-cultural evolution of the country. While socio-cultural
evolution theories abound, the common agreement amongst academics and
practitioners is that cultures and societies change over time, taking
into account changes in the external environment and internal systems,
and incorporating the cultural heritage of the past. Culture is
dynamic, and restricting its growth will only negatively affect the
development of the society. In looking back at the cultural richness
during flow of information on the Silk Road route, one can only hope
that the Uzbekistan of today will allow its artists, academics and
social workers to exercise their fundamental freedoms, in order to
carry the country's cultural legacy into the modern times.

--
Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth. - Mohandas Gandhi

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