Uzbeks have always combined diligence and wisdom which made it possible for them to have good relations and live together with a diversity of peoples from Russian and Tajiks to the Chinese and Indians, says Boris Makarenko.
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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A Special One
The Price of the Question
I may risk hurting the feelings of other Central Asian peoples but I’d like to repeat a phrase from an old TV advert: “I love Uzbeks!” Uzbeks have always combined diligence and wisdom which made it possible for them to have good relations and live together with a diversity of peoples from Russian and Tajiks to the Chinese and Indians.
There isn’t anything more painful when this kind of people cannot build proper relations with the outside world. Uzbekistan has always striven to be not just a “special” country in Central Asia but the leader in the region. With all other Central Asian neighbors Russia has had stable relations which have come to evolve to a certain status quo. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan need Russia so badly that they have never felt inferiority complex about this unequal partnership. Kazakhstan could be secure at least because of its oil riches and quite successful modernization. Turkmenistan combined mineral resources with intentional isolation and pragmatic calculations. Uzbekistan has spent a while trying to find its place. On the one hand it took part in Russia-promoted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the CIS but it also paid advances to the CIS’s rivals, the GUUAM.
The country went through a short period of euphoria after it entered the anti-terrorism alliance and deployed an American air base. Uzbeks thought that it would keep them protected them from any possibility of an authoritarian regime for quite a while. They were wrong, and the West’s reaction to violence in Andizhan proved it. Uzbekistan hastily went back to the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, left the GUUAM, stealing one “U” from its abbreviation, joined the EurAsEC and started to look for ways to integrate into oil and gas networks and organizations of the region. Later Uzbekistan realized that it needed to go back to the West as well. Tashkent tried to hold an election with at least seeming competition, lobbied to lift EU sanctions which were imposed after the Andizhan uprising, received high-placed American emissaries and set human rights activists free.
What should Russia do in this situation? First, Russia should keep history in mind. Uzbekistan gave land to thousands of evacuated Russians during WWII. In another example, the whole Soviet Union joined efforts to help rebuild Tashkent which was left in ruins after a major earthquake. Russia should remember history of recent years and U-turns of Uzbek foreign policy. Islam Karimov is one of the two CIS leaders who occupied the top position in the republic in the Soviet times. Relations with him may have been not as easy as with the other old-timer Nursultan Nazarbayev but it is not the reason to give up trying to change the direction right now.
Second, Russia should take its neighbor as it is. Uzbekistan is not the only country that tries to play at several stages at a time. Russia needs to make use of its competitive edge in relations with the neighbor. We’ve got plenty of things to offer – oil and gas policies, the air construction industry and strategic partnership. Reliable and pragmatic relations with Uzbekistan will add the missing part to integration processes between Russia and countries of Central Asia.
Boris Makarenko, deputy director general of the Center for Political Technologies
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 06, 2008
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