Uzbekistan’s 20th anniversary of independence and the end of the Muslim fast of Ramadan came at the same time this year, and the Uzbek government exploited both to glorify the state. For months leading up to the 20th anniversary on September 1, the government was frenetically involved in urban renewal projects, demolishing old homes and shops and evicting long-time residents, sweeping the homeless up and sending them out of town, and exterminating stray cats and dogs. Many small businesses, state employees and students were pressed into service, and pressured to contribute money and time to making various special displays and performances in honor of the holiday. Police stepped up security, and bus service from provincial cities was suspended. This preparation period coincided with increased harassment, searches and detentions of human rights activists and independent journalists, and in fact an anticipated amnesty of prisoners never occurred.
Everywhere, credit for Uzbekistan’s independence and alleged prosperity was ascribed to President Islam Karimov, who has ruled Uzbekistan with an iron hand for 22 years – with a length of time in office and with a brutality that has increasingly been compared to some (now toppled) Middle Eastern despots. State television was on full-tilt propaganda mode, with specials such as a television show, “"On the Eve of Independence, Or the Last Agony of the Soviets" largely based on Karimov's recently published book, "On the Threshold of Independence, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. A scene showed women picking cotton in the snow as emblematic of the hard labor and pointlessness of the Soviet era, yet given that school children were picking cotton in the cold weather last November as well as the heavy-handed clean-ups for the holiday, there was not much cause for celebration.
The story of Karimov’s heroics was mythologized: no mention was made of the fact that far from championing independence, Karimov in fact sent a telegram to the Soviet coup-plotters in August 1991, expressing support for order and discipline.
The anniversary TV show also claimed the Uzbek leader rode on horseback himself to quell violence against Meskhetian Turks in 1990, although the incident has never been reported. The show also attributed to Karimov the calming of the 1990 riots in Osh, although generally the writer Chingiz Aitmatov is credited with that role.
Another revised historical moment was the time in December 1991 when Karimov went to Namagan where a group demanding an Islamist state had seized local offices. A videotape of this time shows Karimov made to sit down in a hall and listen to Tohir Yuldash, the future leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who lectured him on government and Islam. The anniversary TV show says Karimov seized the microphone from Yuldash and gained control of the crowd. But in fact, it was Birlik activist Nosir Zokir, who actually took the microphone from Karimov and demanded that freedom of assembly be restored, RFE/RL reports.
Eid ul-Fitr, the Muslim feast-day marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, was marked in Uzbekistan on August 31 and even declared a national holiday and a day off from work. This year, Uzbek authorities opted to loosen restrictions they had made on devout Muslims in the past and encouraged celebration of the holiday, EurasiaNet reported. In the past, Ramadan-related celebrations were even banned, but this year, they were approved, possibly as a strategy to head off any trouble that would mar the 20th anniversary celebrated on September 1. While state media carried admonitions from imams under state control to the faithful, urging them not to organize excessively lavish traditional dinners to break the fast and to keep the number of guests down, authorities did not force merchants to sell alcohol, forbidden for Muslims, which they had done in the past, or report on guests.
More than 90 percent of Uzbekistan's population of 26 millions consider themselves as Muslims. Karimov ordered official media to provide "comprehensive and positive" coverage of the state-sponsored Ramadan festivities, said EurasiaNet.
Yet the purpose was not merely to provide a safety valve, but to amalgamate the greater tolerance for religious expression with choreographed outpourings of thanks to the state for maintaining stability. Muslims taking part in prayer services in mosques in Tashkent told the Uzbek Service of the BBC how a large number of people took part in the prayers this year. During their homilies, the imams called for expressions of gratitude to the head of state for the peace they have in Uzbekistan, and urged Allah to preserve them from events like the “Arab Spring.”
“The imam said that Independence is a supreme value, that all of our successes is a great achievement, that we are able to quietly read a prayer, whereas in other countries it is not peaceful, everything is in horror, especially in the Arabic countries, if something like that happened here, he said, would you like it? So let’s pray for our head of state, who is a guarantor of our peaceful life,” Anvar Turakhujaev, a pensioner from Tashkent, told the BBC.
Police presence near mosques was double or triple what it had been in past years and public prayer was prohibited on Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power). Some observers believed the increased latitude for Muslims was temporary
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick compiles the Uzbekistan weekly roundup for EurasiaNet. She is also editor of EurasiaNet's Choihona blog. To subscribe to Uzbekistan News Briefs, a weekly digest of international and regional press, write [email protected]
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