Dariush Rajabian
tajikistanweb.com

Submission to Uzbekisation

After the separation of Tajikistan from Uzbekistan Moscow received less complaints about Tashkent’s envisaged cultural assimilation of the Tajiks in Uzbekistan; not because the process had stumbled, but due to the lack of complainers within Uzbekistan. A full-fledged Uzbekisation programme was reaching the remotest parts of the republic and the Tajiks’ fears before and after the delimitation were coming true.

In 1925, Tajiks of Urgut district in Samarqand province tried to face the bitter reality by saying: "We are Tajiks, but our children will be Uzbeks." (I. I. Zarubin, ‘Spisok narodnostei Turkestanskogo kraia’, Trudy Komissii po izucheniiu plemennogo sostava Rossii i sopredel’nykh stran, Numberg, Leningrad, 1925, p.7).

Later, Tajiks in Bukhara admitted: "In the past we were Tajiks, but now we become Uzbeks." (O.A. Sukhareva, Bukhara, XIX-nachalo XX v. Pozdnefeodal’nyi gorod I ego naselenie, Moscow, 1966, p. 122).

The suppressed national consciousness of the Tajiks coupled with the Uzbek government’s persistent efforts to assimilate this huge ethnic group with the titular nation of Uzbekistan resulted in submission of the majority of Uzbekistani Tajiks and their passive acceptance of the harsh encroachment upon their human and ethnic rights. Throughout the Soviet years their rights to officially return to their real ethnic identity were denied. During the long reign of Sharaf Rashidov (1959-1983), one of the most notorious and corrupt Communist rulers of Uzbekistan, Tajiks’ situation in Uzbekistan reached catastrophic proportions, when millions of the citizens were deprived of their basic rights to speak and study in their native tongue, while Uzbeks in Tajikistan were enjoying all rights and liberties of an ethnic minority stipulated by the Soviet Constitution.

A Moment of Change

Gorbachev’s perestroika left no stone unturned to cure the incurable ailing corrupt empire. Only then, in the late 1980s, Uzbekistani Tajiks could raise their voices in protest over the infringement of their basic rights by Tashkent. Overwhelmed by the avalanche of glasnost-inspired complaints, the Uzbek authorities admitted their past discriminatory practices (Olivier Roi 1991: 24-5). Samarqand cradled the new Tajik nationalist movement and two organisations were established in the city to pursue the Tajik cause: Uktam Bekmuhammadov’s "Sayqal" Social and Cultural Association (SCA - 1989) and Jamal Mirsaidov’s National Cultural Centre of Tajiks and Tajik-speaking Peoples (NCC-1990). Later, the two merged into a coalition commonly known as "Samarqand".

Now it is hard to believe that Samarqand’s charter with its bravely nationalistic tone had been approved by the Karimov regime. At the same time, the charter provides deeper insight into the plight of Uzbekistani Tajiks untold for decades. One of its paragraphs reads:

"The ultimate goal of the formation and activity of the Samarqand SCA is the achievement of the economic, political, social, cultural and educational goals of perestroika in the enclaves populated mostly by Tajiks and Tajik-speaking ethnic groups. It is necessary to awaken and foster in these peoples a sense of national consciousness and pride, to instil a positive work ethic, to encourage concrete efforts to eradicate bureaucratic red tape, corruption and parochialism, to strengthen the unity of all democratic movements of the region and the country, to maintain discipline and law and order, and to transfer all power to democratically revived soviets of people’s deputies." (Political Organization in Central Asia and Azerbaijan: Sources and Documents; 2004, p. 401).

Determining the genuine size of the Tajik and Tajik-speaking population of the city of Samarqand, the Samarqand province and the territory of the Uzbek SSR as a whole, legislative resolution of the question of changing incorrect nationality entries in passports, forms and other identification documents according to the will of the bearer, granting Tajik the status of official language in the enclaves populated mostly by Tajiks and Tajik-speaking ethnic groups, resolving the question of unhampered education of children and youth in their native Tajik language, publication of newspapers, magazines, textbooks and other literature as well as the broadcast of radio and television programmes in Tajik, reviving former Tajik names of settlements, streets, and other sites, promoting national folk arts and crafts were among the organisation’s primary goals and tasks.

Samarqand also reserved the right to boycott ‘harmful, misguided and rash decisions, regardless of their source – even to the point of demanding national autonomy for the Tajiks and Tajik-speaking peoples of the Uzbek SSR, should all other constitutional means of achieving genuine equality for them be exhausted’. (Ibid.)

Tajiks Granted Liberties

An open letter was signed by 60,000 Tajiks (Mirsaidov 1995:8) and presented to Islam Karimov in 1991 pinpointing the above-mentioned demands. Karimov responded to many points of the demands adequately.

"The 1989-92 period saw limited improvements especially in terms of culture and education for the minority. Tajik-language education benefited during this period. The expansion of Tajik-language education, including the opening of new higher education courses teaching in Tajik in Bukhara, Samarkand and Termez, has been described as the ‘fruit of independence’. According to Tojiboy Ikromov, of Tashkent Tajik Cultural Centre, approximately two hundred schools in Uzbekistan provide Tajik-language education. (Stuart Horsman in Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe, 1999, p. 204).

Furthermore, Tajiks were permitted to change the nationality entry in their internal passports. Subsequently, 35,000 ‘Uzbeks’ registered as Tajiks in Samarqand within one month in 1991 (Georgii Mirskii 1997:98). Besides, some Tajik programmes appeared on Samarqand regional television.

Then, nobody could imagine that all these exciting changes were merely temporary provisions to be wiped off quite soon. Not long after granting some liberties to the ethnic Tajiks, Tashkent intensified persecution of Uzbekistani Tajik leaders.

"Uktam Bekmuhamedov, leader of its (Samarqand’s –twc) radical wing, was sentenced in 1991 to a suspended prison term and was re-arrested at the end of 1992. Another radical leader, Professor Jamol Mirsaidov, was fired from his post at Samarkand University. (Political Organization in Central Asia and Azerbaijan: Sources and Documents; 2004, p. 401).

Many observers believe that political instability followed by a civil war in neighbouring Tajikistan had a traumatic effect on the Tajik movement in Uzbekistan and discredited it.(to be continued)

Tajiks of Uzbekistan. Part 4