The Foreign Service Journal, April 2003

Now, Central Asia is again at center stage — not least because of the potential for Islamist activism to collide with American interests in the region. But what exactly are American interests there, and what exactly provides the potential for Islamist activism? Political Islam in Central Asia How significant is political Islam (or “Islamism”) in ex- Soviet Central Asia? In his book Jihad , the respected Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid offers a resounding “very significant,” and a knowledge-hungry Western pub- lic — fundamentally stunned by the reach of Islamists worldwide — finds no reason to disagree. The evidence, however, is ambiguous. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, but is estimated to have no more than a few thousand followers. The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan garnered only 7.5 percent of the vote in parlia- mentary elections in 2000. Its popularity had eroded, because attempts at Islamist governance at the regional and local level proved inadequate. Whether this level of activism seems impressive or unimpressive depends on whether one views these states as part of the Soviet or the Muslim world. The Soviet world was atheist, and even though this was a fiction in some areas, broad cohorts of the region’s population nonetheless bear the imprint of secularism. From the standpoint of Soviet secularism, this activism appears impressive. By contrast, the Arab Muslim world is notable for its potent admixture of religion and politics. The reality is neither purely Soviet nor purely Muslim. Political versions of Islam have traditionally had little appeal in Central Asia which has a longstanding tradition of religious tolerance without a political orientation. The region was a latecomer to Islamization, and in many areas the religion simply overlays deeper animistic and shaman- istic practices. Some degree of Islamist activism emerged in the late 19th century, but only at the behest of eth- nonationalist actors. During 70 years of Soviet rule and state-endorsed official atheism, the practice of Islam weakened further. The influence of orthodox Islam spread in the 1990s, but it is worth highlighting the limits to this influence. In Tajikistan, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan used the language of Islam in a civil war that wracked the country from 1992 to 1996, but its major strength came from mercenaries from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Caucasus. After the civil war, its sup- port dropped precipitously. Hizb-ut Tahrir, a transnation- al group that advocates the establishment of an Islamic government through peaceful means, became particular- ly active in Tajikistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Prosecuted actively by the state, it enjoys some — albeit unmeasurable — popular support. Uzbekistan also has an Islamist opposition, which the state consistently depicts as significant. At first glance, the evidence appears uncontroversial. An attempt on author- itarian president Islam Karimov’s life in February 1999, incursions by the IMU into neighboring Kyrgyzstan in 1999 and 2000, and the frequent identification of “cells” of HT are central on the list. But how real is the Islamist “threat?” There are reasons to doubt the veracity of offi- cial accounts. Karimov, a standout in an all-authoritarian cast of regional lead characters, assumed power in 1989 and immediately began an anti-Islam campaign. Islamists had negligible societal support at the time, and yet Karimov used the specter of Islamism as the centerpiece of his emerging ideology. The IMU’s activities were deeply disrupted by the U.S. military presence in the region, but they attempted to regroup in the Garm Valley of eastern Tajikistan over the past year. In Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Islamist activism was even more limited. In the former, it was primarily the domain of ethnic Uzbeks from the Ferghana valley who felt victimized by Kyrgyz discrimination. In the latter state, which has enjoyed a recent economic growth through its oil, gas and mineral sectors, activism has been limited to the southern border with Uzbekistan. While it is tempting to exaggerate the role of Islamist activists, to date local beliefs only rarely have squared with the radical ideologies that some (but not all) Saudi, Egyptian, Pakistani, and other missionaries attempted to bring to the region. But missionaries are salesmen; they try to sell their ideas. Increasingly, these salesmen have made novel appeals that have found resonance. The Emergence of Anti-Americanism At the conclusion of the Cold War, local populations in Central Asia — like their counterparts in the rest of the former socialist bloc —had tremendous (even unrealistic) expectations for their futures. In the vacuum left by the F O C U S A P R I L 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 Edward Schatz is an assistant professor of political sci- ence at Southern Illinois University.