Fakhreddin Khalbek
Asia-Plus
translated from Russian by tajikistanweb

What should be laid down as the foundation of our national idea? Nowadays many researchers – in the Presidential Centre for Strategic Studies as well as in Dialogue Analytical Centre of Muhyiddin Kabiri – discuss Tajikistan’s future national idea.

It’s been said that the time for national unity as the quaint-essence of the national idea is over. A new idea is needed. But what would it be based on?

Our Islamists firmly believe that the role of Islam as a formative element of our historic and national identity cannot be ignored. Presumably it should be regarded as a basic element for a country with 99% of Muslim population. In turn, others suggest reinforcing the secular aspect of the national idea in order to prevent it from turning into a pure Islamic doctrine. By ignoring these factors we can end up with an arid idea deprived of its essence altogether. Everybody understands that these factors should be accommodated in any future national idea to some extent. But… let us leave these talks to our scholars. I want to say something else.

First of all, in the present conditions, each of us has to clearly realize the truth of our history and historic insults. What have Nietzsche in Germany and Nehru in India done earlier? And Solzhenitsin in Russia? I haven’t read about the others.

We were state-less for a thousand years. The present state controls merely a part of our historic territories. Our main cities are left behind the borders, where we are treated as foreigners nowadays.

This history asks us a question: why did it all happen? Why did we remain under aggression from Cyrus’s times till the 20 ^th century? Why did they build towers with our skulls and why were our cities flattened and turned into wheat fields to feed nomads’ horses? Why should our fighters be called basmachi (looter) whereas conquerors are revered as heroes? Why are we afraid of approaching our Iranian brothers whilst our own Tajiks are called ‘Afghan’? Why do we renounce them contrary to our interests and in favour of others? Why should a third party resolve our problems with the neighbours? Why are we scoffed at and called nothing but "drug traffickers"?

In other words, historic insults absorbed by the historic truth devoid of chauvinism should motivate our national idea. Why are Jews and Chechens so rallied? Why do Russians counter Americans now? Because they hold a historic grudge. Jews had endured Arabs’ violence before facing German fascists’ brutality. Chechens are deeply insulted by Stalin’s repressions. Russians hold a grudge against Americans and Europeans for the collapsed Soviet Union. Haven’t Tajiks been insulted? Let me remind you again that we are talking about the truth. Neither chauvinism nor nationalism is involved. Why don’t we dare to speak about it?

Let’s ask ourselves: if we are Aryans as great as our predecessors Bukhari, Rudaki, Sina (Avisenna), Rumi (Mawlana Balkhi), Hafez, Ghafurov etc., why are we among the most vulnerable ones in Russia? Why are we among migrants? Why can’t we finally build the damned Ragun hydro-electric power station and build it without our neighbours’ permission? Why are they allowed to shun their previous positions easily while defending our position is forbidden? Why there are others’ interests in our homeland, whereas our rights and interests are breached in their countries? How come we are so poor with such a natural wealth? Aren’t these the very questions each and every Tajik asks him/herself?

… After listening to my views during a round-table discussion at the Centre for Strategic Studies, Haji Akbar Turajanzada and Mohammad Navid did not accept that we were stateless for a thousand years. "There were ruling clans in our lands, but Tajiks ran all their state affairs", they told me. It is true. Otherwise we wouldn’t have existed at all by now. But, for God’s sake, can a donkey be the owner of the goods he is carrying?

Yes, the Persian world stretched from Baghdad to India and from the hot waters to Kashgar. People spoke and created in Persian. If those "clans" had had their own culture, ours would have been abandoned long ago. Our culture saved us, but we were merely executives of others’ politics, not our own. Conquerors have chosen such an approach all the time. As a result, the Soviet Union handed out the present territory to Tajiks in 1929. The Empire merely expressed its claims against the Persian world. By occupying Afghanistan in 1979 the Soviet Union emphasized its claim again. Our state had not been created precisely for Tajiks, hence beggarly position of culture, religion and intellectuals during the Soviet time. And perhaps even now.

Thus, historic insult, i.e. the truth, should be the motive power of the national idea doctrine that could clearly reflect our Aryan-Persian-Muslim past.