tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/uzbekistan-11830/articlesUzbekistan – The Conversation2024-03-26T17:01:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2262832024-03-26T17:01:32Z2024-03-26T17:01:32ZHow central Asian Jews and Muslims worked together in London’s 20th-century fur and carpet trade<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583728/original/file-20240322-20-wzxojh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The praying hall in Bukhara Synagogue, in the Uzbek capital.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bukhara_synagogue_%28south%29_praying_hall.jpg">Ymblanter|Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the late 1920s, London was home to a lively, if small, community of Jewish merchants from Afghanistan and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-eurasias-tianshan-mountains-set-a-stage-that-changed-the-world-102772">central Asia</a>. Most spoke Judaeo-Persian, popularly known as <em>Bukharian Tajik</em>. Many were fluent in Russian.</p>
<p>Hailing from established merchant families in Bukhara, Samarkand, Kabul and Herat, these immigrants <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Political_and_Economic_History_of_the.html?id=BOh5DwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">traded</a> in furs, carpets, cotton and wool. They maintained commercial relationships with their Muslim counterparts back home, especially Turkmen sheep farmers. </p>
<p>The many poorer Jews living in the region <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4464446.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A23aa1b755d344264427660c7a59eb3bd&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1">worked</a> as distillers, builders, tailors, carpenters, itinerant peddlers and druggists. </p>
<p>In the years following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-was-russias-october-revolution-for-and-does-it-matter-any-more-84533">1917 Bolshevik revolution</a>, many Jewish merchants in central Asia crossed into Afghanistan and travelled on to <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-ordinary-diamond-how-the-koh-i-noor-became-an-imperial-possession-200473">British India</a>. “I am a cloth merchant of Bokhara”, Sewai Hafaiz, aged 35, told the British official who interviewed him in the border city of Peshawar in November 1926, according to the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/dli.pahar.3776/2010%20Guide%20to%20India%20Office%20Records%20relating%20to%20Central%20Asia%20by%20Bond%20s_djvu.txt">India Office records</a>. “I and Abraham have brought 24,000 karakul [lamb] skins for sale. We will sell them here or Bombay, or else take them to London.” </p>
<p>I have interviewed the descendants of these Jewish merchants, who have shared memories of life in post-war London. As I show in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02757206.2023.2288649">recent article</a>, their knowledge of furs – and close ties with Muslim contacts in Afghanistan and Pakistan – sustained a vibrant international trade for the better part of the 20th century. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An early colour photograph of a group of children and an old man around a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583692/original/file-20240322-28-ncp9aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583692/original/file-20240322-28-ncp9aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583692/original/file-20240322-28-ncp9aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583692/original/file-20240322-28-ncp9aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583692/original/file-20240322-28-ncp9aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583692/original/file-20240322-28-ncp9aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583692/original/file-20240322-28-ncp9aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jewish children with their teacher in early 1900s Samarkand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukharan_Jews#/media/File:Jewish_Children_with_their_Teacher_in_Samarkand.jpg">Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii | Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Central Asian trading routes</h2>
<p>Among the most valuable commodities in the post-first world war fur trade were Karakul lamb furs. Flocks grazed in the pastures of central Asia and northern Afghanistan. </p>
<p>As Afghanistan’s foreign reserves came increasingly to depend upon this trade, the government sought a monopoly from the 1930s. Jewish merchants were barred from travelling to the settlements in the north of the country, where they had long conducted business.</p>
<p>In this increasingly antisemitic environment, Jews in Afghanistan, including those who had fled there from Soviet central Asia, became impoverished. </p>
<p>The wealthier, including Hafaiz, left. Some joined relatives in the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725886.2022.2090236?casa_token=jZ7pSmWRU4MAAAAA:vZ8QzYJLh3jNbJCl196OyZNacd_I3wBhDQLCBwjrGSmIFbpWp-dBuncHMmSK9sVKkxgjOZK9OG0V">Bukharian quarter of Jerusalem</a>. Jerusalem offered few trade opportunities however and many moved further afield, establishing new offices for family firms in London, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/From_Tashkent_to_Paris.html?id=6EBlxwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Paris, New York, Montreal and Berlin</a>.</p>
<p>A lively Bukharian community in London was subsequently established. The son of one merchant told me he remembered his parents regularly playing cards with other families. In the 1930s, the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Political_and_Economic_History_of_the.html?id=BOh5DwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Association of Bukharian Jews</a> was established in the City of London, providing financial support to Jewish refugees from central Asia living in Iran, India and Afghanistan. It also raised the plight of Afghan Jews in Kabul with British officials in India and London. </p>
<p>After 1945, the UK government worked hard to re-establish London’s status within the fur, carpet and precious stones trades. It was eager to capitalise on the foreign currency that traders could earn through re-exporting their wares to buyers in the US and Europe.</p>
<p>By the late 1940s, Bukharian families had inaugurated a synagogue in Amhurst Park, north London. The daughter of a founding member of the community told me the congregation met in a small house: “Sometime in the mid-1950s I remember being given a gift of sweets on the occasion of the festival of <a href="https://theconversation.com/purims-original-queen-how-studying-the-book-of-esther-as-fan-fiction-can-teach-us-about-the-roots-of-an-unruly-jewish-festival-218677">Purim</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An archival photograph of people in front of a building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583724/original/file-20240322-30-6iiru6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583724/original/file-20240322-30-6iiru6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583724/original/file-20240322-30-6iiru6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583724/original/file-20240322-30-6iiru6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583724/original/file-20240322-30-6iiru6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583724/original/file-20240322-30-6iiru6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583724/original/file-20240322-30-6iiru6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jewish refugees from Kurdistan in Tehran, Iran, 1950.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/magnesmuseum/">MagnesMuseum|Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Close Jewish-Muslim ties</h2>
<p>These <a href="https://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/10/02/at-s-festenstein-sons-furriers/">Jewish merchants</a> maintained decades-long connections with Afghan officials and counterparts, who would visit with them in London. “I remember watching with amazement as my father ate the central Asian dish of <em>plov</em> [rice steamed with meat, sesame oil, cumin and carrots] while sitting in the traditional manner around a cloth placed on the floor with a Muslim from Afghanistan,” the son of a merchant from Samarkand told me.</p>
<p>In his 2011 memoir, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Rumi_Tomato/CgCCZwEACAAJ?hl=en">Rumi Tomato</a>, Muhammad Khan Jalallar, who served as minister of finance in Afghanistan in the early 1970s, recalls how merchants frequently travelled to Kabul and Peshawar. He mentions being visited by several Jewish “friends”, including “a chap by the name of Gabriel, who was a trader dealing in imports, working under another trader’s license”.</p>
<p>Jewish merchants also established close ties to Muslim intermediaries in Pakistan, who completed customs procedures for shipments to the UK. The daughter of a fur merchant in London told me that her father was friends with a “Muslim from Multan”. Her husband too remembered the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Caravans.html?id=-uviBQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Multani</a> trader, who in turn invited them to Pakistan. “He told us we would be treated like kings,” he said, “because his family held ours in such high respect”.</p>
<p>Until the 1980s, Kabul was home to a small but lively Jewish community, approximately 700 people strong. My research shows they led a <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/global/research/researchprojects/afterlivesofurbanmuslimasia">rich social life</a>, picnicking in the mountains and dining in the city’s restaurants.</p>
<p>This ended with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Most Jewish families departed because of insecurity and economic collapse. Only a few <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/08/afghanistans-last-jew-leaves-country">men</a> remained. London-based carpet merchants from Afghanistan sent items for Jewish rites to their co-religionists in Kabul. </p>
<p>One Muslim carpet dealer I interviewed in London, who travelled regularly between the UK and Afghanistan in the 1990s, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>During the first period of government of the Taliban [1996-2001], a Jewish carpet dealer from Afghanistan in London who was my friend asked me to take matzah bread and kosher wine to the remaining Jewish men in Kabul. I was happy to take the bread, but told him I couldn’t risk travelling in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with a bottle of wine, even if it didn’t contain any alcohol.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From the 1960s, increasing hostility in the west toward the fur trade led to its demise. Traders in London shifted to gemstones and diamonds. Others dealt in carpets designed with central Asian motifs and <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/76392801.pdf">woven in Afghanistan</a>. Some families left the city altogether, to join relatives in the US and Israel.</p>
<p>Those who remained mostly encouraged their children to focus on getting a good education. A merchant’s son told me that all he knew of his father’s trading activities was that he “did his calculations on the back of envelopes”. As a result, the institutions established in the early 20th century have largely been forgotten.</p>
<p>Central Asian heritage continuess to inform this community’s cultural life. People visit Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to <a href="https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/cjas/article/view/6783/7233">identify ancestral graves</a>. Their rich culinary traditions – as is evident in cookbooks including <a href="https://www.thebukhariancookbook.com/">Miriam’s Table</a> by London-based author Lilian Cordell – actively preserve the community’s past.</p>
<p>This hidden history of connection and commerce between Britain, Afghanistan, and central Asia serves as a reminder of the possibility of inter-religious coexistence in even the most fraught of times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Magnus Marsden receives funding from the AHRC and Research England. </span></em></p>A hidden history of connection and commerce between Britain, Afghanistan, and central Asia serves as a reminder of the possibility of inter-religious co-existence in even the most fraught of times.Magnus Marsden, Professor Of Social Anthropology, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1783962022-03-17T12:11:46Z2022-03-17T12:11:46ZWhy Crimean Tatars are fearful as Russia invades Ukraine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452610/original/file-20220316-8063-s2t7c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=82%2C8%2C5318%2C3509&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crimean Tatars gathered for a rally commemorating the 70th anniversary of Stalin's mass deportation, in Simferopol, Crimea, on May 18, 2014. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CrimeaTatars/787fdb2ac4624ded85e2fdabe56d8f95/photo?Query=crimea%20tatar&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=259&currentItemNo=15">AP Photo/Alexander Polegenko</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Vladimir Putin’s forces <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/02/24/1082795427/photos-show-the-calamity-as-russia-invades-ukraine">wage a brutal war</a> against Ukraine, the Crimean Tatars living in Russian-occupied Crimea and on the Ukrainian mainland feel particularly threatened by their historic enemy’s latest invasion.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/t3vqg8/crimean_tatar_commander_isa_akayev_has_joined_the/">Some have vowed</a> to defend Ukraine, a land many fled to in 2014 after Putin’s forces invaded the Crimean Peninsula and began to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/12/russia-ukraine-crimean-tatars-dissent-repression">repress the local Crimean Tatars</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the risk of 15-year jail sentences for protesting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Crimean Tatar World Congress <a href="https://twitter.com/Nkbayar/status/1498029810571952133?s=20&t=nT3Q4jFT88q9jsI4Ind6Bg">publicly came out against the invasion and said in a tweet</a>, “Our Congress recognizes its humanitarian and moral obligation to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainians … so help them in all ways they are capable.” </p>
<p>From 1997 to 1998, I lived with Crimean Tatars – both in their places of Stalin-imposed exile in Uzbekistan, where many still remain, and in their ancestral Crimean homeland – while <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190494704.001.0001/acprof-9780190494704">researching two books on this resilient ethnic group</a>. I found a people who had been through centuries of genocidal persecution, but emphasized their nonviolent approach to challenging Russian brutality. </p>
<h2>Crimea’s ancient inhabitants</h2>
<p>The Crimean Tatars formed as a distinct ethnic group from the 11th to the 15th centuries. This ethnic formation began when nomadic Turkic horsemen, known as Kipchaks, arrived from the vast Eurasian steppe, which extends from modern-day Kazakhstan through Ukraine to Moldova. They mixed with the long-settled populations living on the Crimea’s <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2043/ethnogenesis.pdf?1647370138">southern shores</a>, such as the Germanic Goths. </p>
<p>The final process of consolidation as an ethnic group was completed when the nomadic Mongols <a href="http://www.turko-tatar.com/ca303/UCLA200x.pdf">conquered Crimea</a> in the 1200s and their descendants converted to Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, after intermixing with the peninsula’s original population. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing the Tatar state in the 16th century, lying between Muscovy (Russia), the Black Sea and the Ottoman Empire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451944/original/file-20220314-119643-1g92qfc.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Tatar state known as the Crimean Khanate on the Black Sea at its peak in the 16th Century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Khanate#/media/File:Crimean_Khanate_1600.gif">Oleksa Haiworonski via Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Mongol Golden Horde, a state founded by Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu Khan, subsequently ruled over Crimea and Russia for 240 years. When the Golden Horde disintegrated in the 1400s, the Tatars of the Crimea <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/soviet-genocide-putins-conquest-crimean-tatars/">created their own Khanate – a state governed by descendants of the Genghis Khan dynasty</a>.</p>
<p>The Crimean Khanate went on to <a href="https://iccrimea.org/scholarly/bwilliams.html">rule the region extending</a> from the Caucasus Mountains to Moldova for centuries, even after the Mongol empire in China, Russia and the Middle East collapsed. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painting of a palace with minarets going high up into the clouds in the sky and people outside it, some of horseback." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452615/original/file-20220316-8052-1v5j8u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452615/original/file-20220316-8052-1v5j8u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452615/original/file-20220316-8052-1v5j8u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452615/original/file-20220316-8052-1v5j8u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452615/original/file-20220316-8052-1v5j8u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452615/original/file-20220316-8052-1v5j8u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452615/original/file-20220316-8052-1v5j8u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Khan’s palace in Bakhchesaray painted by Carlo Bossoli, 1857.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carlo_Bossoli_Khanpalast_von_Bachcisaraj_1857.jpg">Carlo Bossoli (1815–1884)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Crimean Tatars came to be feared by the Russians as <a href="https://jamestown.org/report/the-sultans-raiders-the-military-role-of-the-crimean-tatars-in-the-ottoman-empire/">horse-mounted raiders and enslavers of the Russian people</a>, their bold expeditions were carried out, in part, to prevent Orthodox-Slavic settlers from encroaching on their ancestral pasture lands. For centuries following Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s conquest of the Tatars of Siberia in the 1500s, Russian settlers had began an inexorable southward advance onto the steppe lands of the Tatars, known in Russian as the Ukraina, or the frontier. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Five boys doing a traditional dance, while locking their arms together, as people watch on the side." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452569/original/file-20220316-8350-1k0520e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452569/original/file-20220316-8350-1k0520e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452569/original/file-20220316-8350-1k0520e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452569/original/file-20220316-8350-1k0520e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452569/original/file-20220316-8350-1k0520e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452569/original/file-20220316-8350-1k0520e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452569/original/file-20220316-8350-1k0520e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young boys doing a traditional dance during a Crimean Tatar wedding in the court of the Crimean Khans in Bakchesaray.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brian Glyn Williams.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Soviet historians later tried to define the Crimean Tatars as “<a href="https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/hrushevskyi-on-the-tatars">a mob of wild, barbarian bandits</a>.” However, in my visits to their former capital of <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1820/">Bakchesaray, the Garden Palace</a>, located in a scenic gorge in the Crimean Mountains, I found Turkish-style imperial mosques and minarets, beautiful medieval marble fountains engraved with Arabic, and a palace evocative of a lost glory. </p>
<p>In 1774, the Russian Empire, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-crimean-tatars-9780190494704?cc=us&lang=en&">using vastly superior numbers</a> and new gunpowder technology, finally crushed the Crimean Tatars’ cavalry-based army and annexed their realm nine years later. </p>
<h2>Genocide under Stalin</h2>
<p>The Russian conquest of their homeland almost destroyed the Crimean Tatars as a distinct ethnic group. The once-free Tatar peasants were turned into serfs by their new Russian masters, their communal lands were confiscated, and their centuries-old mosques, bazaars and graveyards were <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2046/monderusse-39_%281%29.pdf?1647463830">destroyed</a></p>
<p>As hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars abandoned their southern mountain villages and nomadic yurt encampments to flee to Ottoman Turkey, the dwindling remnants of this ancient people in Tsarist Crimea <a href="https://iccrimea.org/Gaspirali/legacy.html">became a largely landless and repressed minority in a newly Slavic majority land</a>. </p>
<p>Worse was to come under the Tsars’ heirs, the Soviets. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin decided to ethnically cleanse the peninsula’s remaining Tatar population during World War II after accusing them of being a race of <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2044/the_crimean_tatar_exile_in_cen.pdf?1647370474">Nazi</a> collaborators. </p>
<p>Crimean Tatar women, children, and men, including those fighting in the ranks of the Soviet Army against Germany, were brutally deported in KGB cattle trains to the depths of Soviet Central Asia in May 1944. Approximately <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxiLDFxW8kE">1 in 3 Crimean Tatars died</a> in an ethnic cleansing that Ukraine and several other countries <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tatar-deportation-parliament-genocide/27360343.html">later recognized as a genocide</a>.</p>
<p>Widely dispersed <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/75th-anniversary-the-deportation-crimean-tatars">from their ancestral lands</a> in the Central Asian deserts among a hostile local population, the surviving Crimean Tatars might have disappeared as a nation under Communist programs designed to wipe out their distinct identity. But they tenaciously managed to keep their collective identity alive and fought a decadeslong, transgenerational battle to <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/book-review-brian-glyn-williams-crimean-tatars-from-soviet-genocide-to-putin/">return to the romanticized “yeshil ada,” or the “green island,” of Crimea</a>.</p>
<p>As Soviet rule weakened and collapsed from 1989 to 1991, approximately 250,000 Crimean Tatars, roughly half the nation, <a href="https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/20315/file.pdf">migrated back</a> to their homeland on the shores of the distant Black Sea. By that time, the Russian administration-dominated Crimean Autonomous Republic had been made part of Ukraine. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A man dressed in a suit and a black cap standing next to a woman in a white headscarf and floral pink dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452250/original/file-20220315-27-174lgf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452250/original/file-20220315-27-174lgf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452250/original/file-20220315-27-174lgf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452250/original/file-20220315-27-174lgf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452250/original/file-20220315-27-174lgf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452250/original/file-20220315-27-174lgf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452250/original/file-20220315-27-174lgf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An elderly Crimean Tatar couple who survived Stalin’s genocide and returned to live in a simple settlement in Crimea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brian Glyn Williams.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the late 1990s, <a href="https://brianglynwilliams.com/crimea/pict_01a.html">I lived in a</a> squatter settlement with the Shevkievs, a Crimean Tatar family who had returned to the then-Ukrainian territory of Crimea from exile in Uzbekistan. I still fondly recall eating their famous chiborek fried meat pastries, hearing ancient folk ballads of the brave, horse-mounted Tatar warriors fighting the Russians, and being welcomed with open arms by this impoverished but resilient family and people. </p>
<p>By this time, the Russians <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/crimea-demographics-chart-2014-3">made up 58% of the Crimean autonomy’s population</a> and the indigenous Tatars only 12%. Anti-Tatar sentiment among the dominant Russians was widespread. I saw crowds in the Crimea <a href="https://www.brianglynwilliams.com/crimea/pict_38.html">marching with placards of Stalin</a> as an overt message of hostility toward the Tatars.</p>
<h2>The return of the Russians</h2>
<p>In 2014, Putin annexed the Crimea to punish Ukraine <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-annex-crimea-why-putin-invaded-2014-what-happened-nato-annexation-explained-1424682">for its efforts to</a> form closer ties with Western Europe and the U.S. For the Crimean Tatars who had rebuilt their devastated nation in democratic Ukraine, the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/crimean-tatars-face-russian-crackdown/3362590.html">conquest of their homeland</a> by their historical nemesis, now ruled by an increasingly autocratic Putin, was a nightmare come true. </p>
<p>Among the new Russian Federation authorities’ first measures after annexing the Crimea Autonomous Republic was to ban the Crimean Tatars’ parliament, known as the Mejlis, which had given women the right to vote in 1918. They also <a href="https://ahvalnews.com/turkey/crimean-tatars-urge-global-community-stand-ukraine-war-russia">arrested, tortured and killed</a> Crimean Tatar activists. </p>
<p>Thousands of Crimean Tatars fled Russian oppression in Crimea following its 2014 annexation. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/why-capturing-ukraine-kherson-important-for-russia">Many settled</a> in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, or nearby Kherson, a town Putin’s forces <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-claims-it-captured-ukrainian-city-of-kherson-fighting-in-kharkiv-renews/">claimed they had captured on March 2, 2022</a>. </p>
<p>One displaced Crimean Tatar, who fled the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 to Ukraine, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10508885/IAN-BIRRELL-Crimean-Tatars-victimised-Stalin-fight-Putins-Russia-death.html">declared in late February 2022</a>, “We have nowhere left to run, so we’ll have to fight.” </p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Glyn Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar who spent many years living with the Crimean Tatars explains their long history of persecution.Brian Glyn Williams, Professor of Islamic History, UMass DartmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1384982020-05-21T13:33:19Z2020-05-21T13:33:19ZHow Central Asia’s authoritarian regimes have used coronavirus to their advantage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336773/original/file-20200521-102632-1s618y9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C10%2C790%2C488&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Business as usual for the Tajik president, Emamoli Rakhmon, at the new year 'Nowruz' celebration in March.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Press service of the president of Tajikistan.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The authoritarian Central Asian state of Tajikistan <a href="https://eurasianet.org/tajikistan-finally-confirms-its-first-15-coronavirus-cases">admitted to its first cases of COVID-19</a> in late April. This followed a World Health Organization (WHO) decision to dispatch a team to investigate previous claims that the country was coronavirus-free.</p>
<p>To the west, Tajikistan’s near neighbour Turkmenistan, known as the North Korea of Central Asia, continues <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/10/turkmenistan-coronavirus-pandemic-denial-strongman-berdimuhamedov/">to report no COVID-19 cases</a> and has <a href="https://rsf.org/en/news/coronavirus-limits-turkmenistan">avoided use of the word coronavirus</a> as much as possible in order to deter the spread of information about the pandemic. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-turkmenistan-ban-masks-word-a9438266.html">Turkmen police</a> have reportedly arrested citizens found to be discussing coronavirus in public, or wearing protective masks. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Belarus – which has earned the moniker of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2QERR5wyks">“Europe’s last dictatorship”</a> – the president, Alexander Lukashenko, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/europe/soviet-strongmen-coronavirus-intl/index.html">advocated vodka, hockey, and folk medicine</a> against the virus and in April <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-belarus/nobody-will-die-from-coronavirus-in-belarus-says-president-idUSKCN21V1PK">reassured Belorussians</a> that “nobody will die from coronavirus in our country”. As of May 21, Belarus has already registered more than <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belarus/">32,000 coronavirus cases and 179 deaths</a>. </p>
<p>Censorship, repression, and disinformation are hardly new strategies for post-Soviet regimes. Just like many of their counterparts <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/28/authoritarians-exploiting-coronavirus-undermine-civil-liberties-democracies/">elsewhere in the world</a>, Central Asia’s authoritarian strongmen have weaponised the pandemic to further consolidate their hold on power – those, that is, who have acknowledged the virus threat in the first place.</p>
<p>Just as COVID-19 has offered opportunities to authoritarian – and would-be authoritarian – leaders, so it also presents significant challenges. Authoritarian rule is sustained by a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/how-dictatorships-work/8DC095F7A890035729BB0BB611738497">range of tools and mechanisms</a>, from coercion to co-option, but can rarely survive a major crisis without offering something more. Authoritarian regimes often <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/ia/authoritarianism-and-securitization-development-africa">define</a> this “something more” as strength and stability, and this has also been the case during COVID-19. For example, Kazakhstan’s state and state-aligned media has been replete with references to <a href="https://kazakh-tv.kz/en/view/central_asia/page_211350_central-asia-keeps-up-the-fight-with-covid19">“discipline”</a> in recent weeks.</p>
<p>A global pandemic can play into the hands of authoritarian rulers in this regard, but it can also leave them dangerously exposed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337546/original/file-20200526-106848-yt3pco.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">Data from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When repression isn’t enough</h2>
<p>In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, authorities have enforced lockdown and quarantine measures in a typical Soviet military style. Soldiers equipped with guns and armoured vehicles are patrolling public spaces and restricting the movement of citizens and traffic between, and within, cities.</p>
<p>In Uzbekistan, the <a href="https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2020/04/06/covid-diary/">General Prosecutor’s office</a> recommended that citizens keep personal diaries of who they meet, when and where. Given the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/uzbekistan/freedom-world/2020">extensive power of the General Prosecutor’s Office</a>, such a “recommendation” should be perceived by Uzbek citizens as an obligation.</p>
<p>Kazakhstan is actively using <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/kazakhstan-experiments-with-surveillance-technology-to-battle-coronavirus-pandemic/">intellectual facial recognition technologies</a> and a video camera system called <em>Sergek</em>, which means “sharp eye” in Kazakh, to catch and fine citizens who violate quarantine restrictions.</p>
<p>The Kazakhstani authorities are planning to introduce a new mobile application, developed by the Ministry of Health Care and local government of Nur-Sultan city, called <a href="https://vlast.kz/obsshestvo/38384-svoboda-vo-vrema-cp.html">Smart Astana</a> to track physical movement of citizens who are in quarantine. In the context of these Central Asian regimes in particular, the use of such technologies presents a high risk of data abuse and manipulation by the authorities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336724/original/file-20200521-102667-g0ujw2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336724/original/file-20200521-102667-g0ujw2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336724/original/file-20200521-102667-g0ujw2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336724/original/file-20200521-102667-g0ujw2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336724/original/file-20200521-102667-g0ujw2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336724/original/file-20200521-102667-g0ujw2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336724/original/file-20200521-102667-g0ujw2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Entry post to Nur-Sultan city, the capital of Kazakhstan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Saltanat Janenova</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the risks, citizens from Central Asian countries have flooded social media with photos and videos complaining about the devastating conditions in hospitals and <a href="https://cabar.asia/en/i-fear-to-be-infected-how-ca-authorities-meet-and-quarantine-their-citizens/">quarantine facilities</a> within days of the outbreak. Some 170 people being held in quarantine at a former US military base in Kyrgyzstan complained of bad smells, a lack of heating, and <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyz-quarantine-quarters-called-horribly-cold-and-dirty-/30499760.html">“horribly cold and dirty” conditions</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://rsf.org/en/news/kazakh-journalists-harassed-over-covid-19-reporting">Kazakhstan</a>, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/press-freedom/media-restrictions-blow-covid-19-coverage-kyrgyz-journalists-say">Kyrgyzstan</a> and <a href="https://eurasianet.org/uzbekistans-coronavirus-information-lockdown-prompts-questions">Uzbekistan</a> swiftly enforced state of emergency legislation prohibiting photo and video recordings in medical institutions and quarantine facilities. They threatened people who disobeyed with prosecution for “spreading false information”. Some civic activists, bloggers and journalists have <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-kazakh-activists-coronavirus-human-rights-economy/30542645.html">already been imprisoned</a> on the same charge. </p>
<h2>Trust issues</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/04/23/life-carries-on-as-usual-in-tajikistan-and-turkmenistan">Tajikistan, Turkmenistan</a> and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/22/belarus-denies-danger-coronavirus-outbreak-football-matches/">Belarus</a>, governments have continued to operate as if business were carrying on as usual. They have denied the pandemic and given a green light to large celebrations such as the New Year (“Nowruz”) celebrations at the end of March in <a href="https://eurasianet.org/tajikistan-feast-in-the-time-of-coronavirus">Tajikistan</a>, World Health Day in April in <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/turkmenistan-celebrates-world-health-day-unwisely/">Turkmenistan</a>, and a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52574749">military parade in Belarus</a> in May. </p>
<p>In the absence of a strong government public health response, many <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/05/russias-post-soviet-neighbors-belarus-and-turkmenistan-face-coronavirus-as-leaders-deny-problem-a70188">Turkmens and Belarussians are limiting their contacts</a> and avoiding mass gatherings voluntarily. </p>
<p>More widely, there has been a gradual loss of public trust in Central Asian <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-030-03008-7_55-1">governments’ competence</a> in recent years, resulting from weak policy implementation capacity, rampant corruption, and limited citizen engagement. </p>
<p>In this context, the authoritarian governments in the former Soviet bloc have responded to the pandemic by reinforcing their grip on power even further. Temporary measures introduced during the emergency, such as harsh legislative measures and new surveillance tools, are likely to remain a permanent feature of the new normal. But at the same time, the pandemic has left these regimes dangerously exposed to the risks of rising public discontent unless they take measures to regain the trust of their citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138498/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saltanat Janenova is also affiliated with the Graduate School of Public Policy, Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Fisher receives research funding from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and WhatsApp (Research Awards for Social Science and Misinformation) and has previously received funding from the AHRC, British Academy, ESRC, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Stellenbosch University, and is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State.</span></em></p>Censorship, repression and disinformation have characterised Central Asian responses to COVID-19.Saltanat Janenova, Teaching Fellow in Public Policy and Management, University of BirminghamJonathan Fisher, Director, International Development Department, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1091492019-01-07T11:58:42Z2019-01-07T11:58:42ZNeed to solve a border dispute? Look to Ethiopia or Uzbekistan<p>Border disputes have recently taken on renewed importance, threatening political crisis in the UK, US and EU. Yet 2018 saw positive steps towards resolving some of the world’s most difficult border conflicts, between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and Ethiopia and Eritrea. What lessons can be drawn from these examples?</p>
<p>International boundaries are not the same as international borders. Boundaries are invisible vertical planes extending upwards into airspace and downwards into the subsoil, marking the legal limit of states. Borders, on the other hand, are the practices associated with managing movement over boundaries, such as customs checkpoints, passport controls, and fences. Although literally at the edge of states, they can symbolically figure at the heart of a nation’s politics. </p>
<p>This was amply demonstrated in 2018. In the UK, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-44615404">“Irish backstop”</a> question plunged the country into an unprecedented political crisis. In the Mediterranean, meanwhile, over <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/">2,200 migrants died</a> attempting to evade the EU’s draconian border controls. At the same time, political gains have been made by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/its-the-right-wings-italy-now/562256/">parties of the right</a> who regard the EU’s border-control policies as not draconian enough. </p>
<p>Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s tub-thumping over a <a href="http://time.com/5466781/migrant-caravan-trump-border-crisis/">“caravan” of Central American migrants</a> supposedly threatening the US border made 2017’s hotly-contested midterm elections even uglier. Tussles with lawmakers over funding a border wall with Mexico have now led to a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46637638">government shutdown</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/migrant-caravan-branding-migrants-human-shields-has-a-deadly-motive-106885">Migrant caravan: branding migrants 'human shields' has a deadly motive</a>
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<p>All this is a long way away from the <a href="https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780887309670/the-borderless-world-rev-ed/">“borderless world”</a> that 1990s globalisation theorists such as Kenichi Ohmae predicted would follow the end of the Cold War. Instead, we are seeing a “rebordering” of the world, the physical and symbolic reinforcement of what historian Timothy Synder has called <a href="http://timothysnyder.org/books/the-wall-around-the-west">“the wall around the West”</a>.</p>
<p>But the Western perspective isn’t the only one. Indeed, 2018 saw a number of hopeful and instructive developments in Asia and Africa.</p>
<h2>Central Asia</h2>
<p>Created in the 1920s by the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan became independent states in 1991. Their mutual boundary was an internal division within the Soviet Union, and was never intended to be an international boundary. Consequently, when the two states became independent, there were <a href="https://www.upress.pitt.edu/books/?s=megoran&submit=">numerous disputes about its precise course</a>. Villages, ethnic groups, families, farms, transport links and utility provision crisscrossed the borderlands. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, imposed unilateral border controls. Visas were demanded, crossborder bridges demolished, roads blocked, and bus routes terminated. Villages that straddled the boundary were demolished and residents forcibly moved elsewhere. Barbed wire fences were erected, unmarked mine fields laid, and soldiers deployed to the border frequently used violence on petty traders and other borderlanders. A boundary commission was established, but its work stalled as relations between the two states deteriorated.</p>
<p>Populists in Kyrgyzstan reacted furiously, alleging that Uzbekistan was invading them. Inter-ethnic dynamics within Kyrgyzstan worsened, culminating in 2010 with <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/08/16/where-justice/interethnic-violence-southern-kyrgyzstan-and-its-aftermath">pogroms against the country’s Uzbek minority</a>. </p>
<p>Karimov died in 2016 and was succeeded by his protege, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/uzbekistan-kyrgyzstan-resolving-decades-old-border-dispute/28918059.html">Mirziyoyev prioritised rebuilding regional relations,</a> kick-starting delimitation negotiations and in late 2017 unilaterally reopened many border crossings. </p>
<p>In 2018, I visited the border and saw crowds of people crossing for trade and to visit family members, many of whom they had not seen for a decade and a half. Ethnic and interstate relations have improved as a result. </p>
<h2>Ethiopia-Eritrea</h2>
<p>An even more striking example from 2018 was the ending of the Ethiopian-Eritrean border conflict. As with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, this boundary was a <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/afrrev/article/view/168496">colonial legacy</a> that artificially divided populations – and between 1998 and 2000, the two countries fought a bitter border war during which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/31/ethiopia">some 70,000 people died</a>. The disputed territories were relatively small and of little economic value, but <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402390.2016.1182909">became heavily politicised</a> by the militaristic governments of both countries.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.haguejusticeportal.net/index.php?id=6162">Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission</a> (EEBC) was established under a 2000 peace agreement to end the war. It rendered its decision in 2002 and planned to oversee demarcation in 2003. Although previously agreeing that the ruling would be binding, Ethiopia took the highly unusual position of refusing to accept it. Despite pressure from the UN Security Council, troops continued to occupy disputed territory, refugees remained in camps, and crossborder contact was minimal. The threat of renewed war continued.</p>
<p>But in April 2018, the relatively youthful Abiy Ahmed took over as Ethiopian prime minister. He moved rapidly to improve relations with Eritrea, accepting the EEBC ruling and pulling troops back from disputed areas. A mere three months after taking office, he signed a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-45475876">peace accord</a> with his Eritrean counterpart, formally ending the war. This was accompanied by joyful scenes of families reunited after two decades. </p>
<h2>How to make good borders</h2>
<p>Good borders are not about technical lines on a map, but political will. Changes in leadership in Uzbekistan and Ethiopia were crucial in restarting boundary delimitation and border management processes that had become deadlocked. As a result, families have been reunited, ethnic tensions reduced, and trade opportunities increased. </p>
<p>There are broader lessons here. The impasses created by the Irish border question in the Brexit negotiations and Trump’s border wall have created political crises, poisoned politics, and fanned xenophobia. More migrants die each year because of the EU’s militarised border controls <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/">than at any other border on Earth</a>. These outcomes are not inevitable; they are political choices.</p>
<p>The EU, UK and US like to see themselves as moral standard-bearers in the international community. When it comes to border politics, however, they could do a lot worse than look to Uzbekistan and Ethiopia in 2019.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Megoran has received funding from the ESRC and British Academy for research on borders in Central Asia.</span></em></p>While the West fails to solve its border issues, countries in Asia and Africa have found a positive way forward.Nick Megoran, Reader in Political Geography, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/868872017-11-06T09:37:43Z2017-11-06T09:37:43ZHas Uzbekistan’s repressive government helped radicalise its emigrants and exiles?<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-draws-lone-wolves-to-the-islamic-state-86746">Halloween terrorist attack</a> in New York by Sayfullo Saipov has ignited a debate in social media between scholars of Central Asia on why there are an apparently increasing number of such attacks by Uzbeks. The New York atrocity follows similar events in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38645787">Istanbul</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-domestic-terrorism-threat-is-serious-sophisticated-and-complex-75869">St Petersburg</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39564825">Stockholm</a>. Four very prominent attacks within ten months give an impression and suggests a trend.</p>
<p>Certain questions naturally arise. Why so many Uzbeks? Does this simply reflect the high number of emigrants, or is it a matter of specific recruitment networks within their migrant communities? Does the combination of a more repressive environment at home with a more open environment in countries of destination matter? Maybe it’s specific histories of conflict between certain groups and the government in Tashkent? Or, perhaps, it’s a backlash against the foreign allies of Uzbekistan? For most of these questions, only partial answers are available – but certain things can be said.</p>
<p>The error repeatedly made across the media is to look for explanations in Uzbekistan itself, but this isn’t about radicalisation in Uzbekistan. There are very few terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan itself, only <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41834729">ten out of 85,000 global incidents</a> recorded from 2001-2016. The much-cited <a href="https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/06/islamic-movement-of-uzbekistan-faction-emerges-after-groups-collapse.php">Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan</a> left the country almost two decades ago, hasn’t committed an attack there since 2004, and now fights in remnants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the attackers perpetrating the incidents above left Uzbekistan many years before the attacks, and were “radicalised” after leaving. Clearly, the real explanations lie elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Getting out</h2>
<p>This is why migration matters, as it does on almost every question with regard to contemporary Central Asia. Uzbekistan has easily the largest population in Central Asia, with more than 30m citizens. Over the last 20 years, several million Uzbeks have left their home country in search of a better life abroad. In this sense, the millions of Uzbeks are part of a wider trend of predominantly young men migrating overseas. For many of them, this is a tremendous opportunity; most are assets to their new home countries. But a tiny minority fall prey to radicalisation and violence.</p>
<p>In a social media debate with other Central Asia specialists, Sarah Kendzior, an journalist and anthropologist of Uzbekistan, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/john.heathershaw.9/posts/1630377010345986">argued</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think the big error that people are making is that this is an ‘Uzbek problem’ instead of a ‘alienated man abroad susceptible to the influence of terrorist propaganda and recruitment efforts’ problem. It makes far more sense to examine the three Uzbek cases within this broader category of men.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then there’s the question of recruitment mechanisms among migrants. Sergei Abashin, the Russian anthropologist, has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/john.heathershaw.9/posts/1630377010345986">drawn attention</a> to how the sheer extent of Uzbek migrant networks makes them an attractive target for militant groups who offer them meaning in militant religion. Uzbek author and journalist Hamid Ismailov concurs; in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2141330232559227&id=135274673164803">Facebook response to the Saipov attack</a>, he recalled a passage from his 2014 novel where he linked the emergence of international Uzbek jihadist networks to the battle between two very violent political institutions: the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the government of Uzbekistan.</p>
<p>Also relevant are specific security governance measures and patterns. Kendzior is correct that the things that attract Central Asians to conduct terrorist attacks and mass shootings are the same as those which attract other young men, including Europeans and Americans. This is a global phenomenon – but it’s also true that more perpetrators come from certain places than from others. The question is why.</p>
<h2>Hunted abroad</h2>
<p>Some countries, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Uzbekistan in particular, have been very good at “exporting” young men who are susceptible to jihadism due to their experience of repression at home. And this repression can even follow them overseas. </p>
<p>At the University of Exeter, we <a href="https://excas.net/exiles-project/about-cape/">record</a> Central Asian governments’ transnational security measures against exiled citizens and opposition groups. Of these states, Uzbekistan is consistently the most likely to pursue its exiles overseas, and particularly its religious exiles. As Alexander Cooley and I discuss in our book <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300208443/dictators-without-borders">Dictators Without Borders</a>, the Uzbek security services informally but extensively collaborate with security services in Russia, where the vast majority of Uzbek migrants are found, and other former Soviet states.</p>
<p>The Uzbek government would say that attacks such as the ones seen this year justify its strategy, but the reverse may be true. Their transnational crackdown on peaceful groups feeds into the jihadist narrative that secularism and Islam are entirely incompatible, as well as subjecting many young men who were not previously attracted to such narratives to harsh, violent repression.</p>
<p>Moreover, despite Uzbekistan’s appalling human rights record, some Western democracies continue to provide limited security co-operation, particularly the US. These measures too can help fuel jihadist thinking. Had the US government made a explicit policy decision many years ago not to work with the Karimov government on counter-terrorism because that government was making the situation worse, it would have undercut some of the violent, radical narratives that may draw in a figure such as Saipov.</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/donald-trump-chuck-schumer-nyc-attack/index.html">knee-jerk anti-immigration response</a> to the Saipov attack risks exacerbating this problem, and once again affirms jihadist images of the West. Migration should be recognised as a given and a good, and not least as part of the foundation of the US itself; simply shutting it down cannot be sound policy, and it won’t help to reduce risks elsewhere. Instead, Western governments need to push back against repressive counter-terrorism policies among the states who have “exported” the perpetrators of violent acts – and they must be prepared to withdraw their support from those dangerous governments who’ve come to depend on it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Heathershaw's work on the Central Asian Political Exiles project I supported by a grant from the Open Society
Foundations</span></em></p>With several terror attacks committed by Uzbeks abroad in 2017, one of the world’s harshest regimes is coming under scrutiny.John Heathershaw, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757222017-04-05T13:16:45Z2017-04-05T13:16:45ZWhy China’s $1 trillion new Silk Road plan is being greeted coolly by the West<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163873/original/image-20170404-5725-jxkgva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bridge too far?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/two-words-china-europe-united-by-135128720?src=5Bf5oxzjnZe_-wcNh3H1-A-1-18">sibgat</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Beijing is gearing up for a major diplomatic offensive in May as it welcomes Vladimir Putin among 20 international leaders for <a href="http://english.cctv.com/2017/01/17/ARTIdF912TLb6wOkkYQNBoTg170117.shtml">a summit</a> on building a “new Silk Road” to bring China closer to the world. This is the One Belt, One Road project – the centrepiece of Chinese international engagement. </p>
<p>It involves a US$1 trillion (£804 billion) <a href="http://gandhara.rferl.org/a/china-central-asia-obor/28112086.html">mega-investment</a> to transform China’s transport and trade links through Eurasia and South-East Asia. <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-new-silk-road-is-all-part-of-its-grand-strategy-for-global-influence-70862">The aim</a> is for China to become a global pillar of trade and free markets and secure its place as a 21st-century superpower. </p>
<p>So far, however, no Western leaders have confirmed their attendance at the summit. What should we read into this, and what does it mean for the success of the project?</p>
<p>One Belt, One Road was <a href="http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/xjpfwzysiesgjtfhshzzfh_665686/t1076334.shtml">unveiled by</a> Chinese president Xi Jinping four years ago. It aims to increase the country’s influence at a time when Europe is still struggling with the consequences of the financial crisis and the US is revising its role as promoter of economic liberalism under the Trump administration. </p>
<p>The project has two strands – “one road”, which is road and rail connections, and “one belt”, which is about the sea. The sea element is focused on everything from a <a href="http://www.aninews.in/newsdetail-MTY/MzA2MTcw/china-039-s-one-belt-one-road-policy-picks-up-pace.html">harbour development</a> in Malaysia to a new free trade agreement <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/china-new-zealand-to-expand-free-trade-agreement-cooperate-on-one-belt-one-road">with New Zealand</a>, while the land part has primarily focused on Central Asia as the most realistic route to Europe. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163901/original/image-20170404-5729-1ejecsk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Maps</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unlocking Central Asia</h2>
<p>China’s routes through five former Soviet states are currently beset with border delays, hefty customs fees, poor roads and railways, and formidable geographic hurdles – notably mountain ranges in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. </p>
<p>There should also be benefits to these landlocked republics from tackling these difficulties. Better links to Europe and the Middle East and potential access to seaports point to greater trading opportunities and extra revenues from transit fees to and from China. Each republic has been enthusiastic about participating, and there have so far been <a href="http://gandhara.rferl.org/a/china-central-asia-obor/28112086.html">railway lines completed</a> from China to Iran and Afghanistan via the region. </p>
<p>Other planned investments include a <a href="http://24.kg/archive/en/bigtiraj/174939-news24.html/">new highway</a> connecting the north and south of Kyrgyzstan and a <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2016-07/21/content_38929557.htm">highway</a> between it and Uzbekistan. There is also the “Angren-Pap” <a href="http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/infrastructure/single-view/view/two-presidents-open-angren-pap-railway.html">railway tunnel</a> in Uzbekistan, the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan <a href="http://en.trend.az/business/energy/2422311.html">gas pipeline</a> and the “Dushanbe-Kulyab-Khorog-Kulma-Karokurum” <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/tajik-leader-in-china-building-roads/">highway</a> in Tajikistan. </p>
<p>China’s diplomatic relations with the republics are very warm – in some cases more so than those of Russia, which can sometimes behave like the overlord it once was. Yet problems may loom for One Belt, One Road all the same. </p>
<p>Investments may be slowed down by unfinished border demarcation and disputes in several unsettled areas, especially between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. There is also a cautious and sometimes hostile attitude towards Chinese migrants and workers from local people, especially <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36163103">in Kazakhstan</a>. This is a potential problem given that the price of investment from Beijing is often Chinese companies winning contracts and supplying labour and equipment. </p>
<p>The Chinese may therefore have to extend their diplomatic efforts to Central Asian people more generally. The leaders of the five republics may also need to be more transparent with their citizens about how they plan to carry One Belt, One Road forward, contrary to the frequently opaque business operations in the region. </p>
<p>Russia is closely interested despite hosting no initiatives to date. Relations between China and Russia tend to be “coldly cordial”, turning on mutual support on some international issues such as Syria, and peaceful coexistence in Eurasia. </p>
<p>Chinese investments in Central Asia are a potential flashpoint, since Russia keeps Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and possibly <a href="http://www.rferl.org/a/qishloq-ovozi-tajikistan-mulls-eeu-feels-pull-of-russia/27893070.html">soon Tajikistan</a> in its orbit through the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Russia can benefit from improved connectivity and therefore stability in the region, but it wants guarantees that One Belt, One Road won’t undermine the economic relevance of the EEU. </p>
<p>Russia and China adopted a <a href="http://china-trade-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/The-Belt-and-Road-Initiative/Joint-Statement-on-Cooperation-on-the-Construction-of-Joint-Eurasian-Economic-Union-and-the-Silk-Road-Projects/obor/en/1/1X000000/1X0A3ABV.htm">joint statement</a> on EEU and Silk Road projects in 2015, but it was vague and cautious. The Chinese will be pleased that Putin is attending next month’s summit, but his enthusiastic backing would be better. </p>
<h2>The Western dimension</h2>
<p>The EU has been remarkably silent on One Belt, One Road. This is despite the project’s obvious geopolitical and economic importance – trade with China <a href="http://english.gov.cn/news/top_news/2016/04/01/content_281475318738444.htm">was</a> US$593 billion in 2015 – and the existence of a <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-2258_en.htm">EU-China Connectivity Platform</a>. Europe’s attitude can partly be explained by Brexit; rising nationalism in several European states; compatibility with European labour norms and standards; the still unclear degree of Chinese companies’ involvement; and the general distraction of the eurozone crisis. </p>
<p>The EU also seems unable to speak with a single voice to China, with member states usually preferring bilateralism or <a href="http://councilforeuropeanstudies.org/critcom/161-framework-and-economic-relations-between-china-and-ceec/">sub-regional frameworks</a> of cooperation. And from an economic point of view, One Belt, One Road is potentially a double-edged sword. Connectivity should benefit everyone, but more competitive Chinese goods flooding Europe is a potential threat unless EU members can coordinate their response. Increased connectivity may also encourage illegal traffickers, organised crime and counterfeiters. </p>
<p>Other Western nations have been lukewarm, too. When New Zealand <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/china-new-zealand-to-expand-free-trade-agreement-cooperate-on-one-belt-one-road">announced</a> its involvement with One Belt, One Road last month, it was one of few Western states to have done so (<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-hungary-idUSKBN0ON01W20150607">Hungary</a> and the <a href="http://www.czech.cz/cz/Aktuality/Czech-Republic-and-China-ink-investment-boosting-m">Czech Republic</a> are on board). <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e30f3122-0eae-11e7-b030-768954394623">Australia declined</a> to follow suit, despite a visit from the Chinese premier on the same trip. </p>
<p>Evidently China still has much work to do to persuade the world of the merits of its big initiative. Political and security issues could yet prove insurmountable unless Beijing can win round neighbours and major rivals alike. </p>
<p>This will need both political and diplomatic patience, and next month’s summit is more likely to be about bridge building than major new announcements. The irony is that while One Belt One Road is aimed at facilitating infrastructure and connectivity, its implementation looks like a long and very bumpy road.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Filippo Costa Buranelli is affiliated with the Higher Education Academy.</span></em></p>China’s One Belt, One Road initiative is holding international summit in Beijing, but no Western leaders have said they are coming yet.Filippo Costa Buranelli, Lecturer, International Relations, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649912016-09-09T09:11:24Z2016-09-09T09:11:24ZWith Uzbekistan’s dictator dead, Russia seeks to extend its influence<p>The death of <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-last-days-of-islam-karimov/27970077.html">Islam Karimov</a>, a dictator who ran Uzbekistan since its creation a quarter-century ago, has kicked off a new round of geopolitical competition in Central Asia. Despite the rise of China in the region, Russia has the strongest hand. But whoever takes the reins in Uzbekistan, they are likely to continue the country’s obstinate status quo – a semi-isolationalist stance that combines political repression with economic decline. </p>
<p>Karimov pursued a policy of “self-reliance” which isolated his country both from the West and from Russia. He expelled the US military in 2005, pulled Uzbekistan out of the Russian-led <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/uzbekistan/9369392/Uzbekistan-withdraws-from-Russia-lead-military-alliance.html">Collective Security Treaty Organization</a> in 2012, and <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/09/uzbekistan-and-the-eurasian-economic-union/">refused to join the Eurasian Economic Union</a> (EEU), a customs union launched in 2015 that includes Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. </p>
<p>Now Karimov’s reign is over, Russia sees a chance to reassert its influence. Moscow still defines Uzbekistan as part of its broader regional sphere of influence and a strategic hub in what it calls “Greater Eurasia”. It is also concerned that any power vacuum could provide an opportunity for Islamist radicals to prosper. Russia is betting that the prime minister <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52839">Shavkat Mirziyoyev</a>, is the most likely guarantor of stability and Russian influence. On September 5, two days after Karimov’s funeral, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived to pay his respects and meet Mirziyoyev – and on September 8, Mirziyoyev was appointed <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37310718">interim president</a>.</p>
<p>Mirziyoyev has little international experience, since he spent most of his career as a regional official, and little is known about his worldview. He tends to be labelled as pro-Russian, primarily because he appears to have Moscow’s approval, and partly because of tenuous family links to the Moscow business elite: his niece <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3512179/Children-wear-couture-dresses-not-trainers-Arsenal-princess-boasts-dressing-two-year-old-couture-Instagram-linked-Uzbeki-despot-boiled-enemies-OIL.html">Diora Usmanova</a> is the widow of Babur Usmanov, who in turn was the nephew of Kremlin-friendly Russian-Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov (one of the owners of Arsenal football club). </p>
<p>Moscow is very adept at leveraging these sorts of personal links, but its ability to exert influence through more conventional economic means is limited. Still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/eu-to-extend-sanctions-against-russia">beset by sanctions</a> and drained by <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-growth-annual">more than a year of recession</a>, it has no spare funds to invest in Uzbekistan. And more to the point, it would take serious heft to turn around the Uzbek economy, which is in deep trouble. </p>
<p>Karimov’s “Uzbek model” of economic development – a disastrous state-led import substitution policy – has utterly failed. Escaping poverty at home, millions of Uzbeks work in Russia. In 2013, their remittances <a href="http://www.uz.undp.org/content/uzbekistan/en/home/ourperspective/ourperspectivearticles/2015/03/05/who-is-behind-remittances--a-profile-of-uzbek-migrants.html">surpassed US$6 billion</a>, but <a href="http://in.rbth.com/economics/finance/2016/09/08/will-uzbek-transition-impact-russias-economy_627915">collapsed to US$3 billon</a> in 2015 as an economically pressed Russia toughened its rules on migrants. </p>
<p>If Uzbekistan joined the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), it would get a better deal for these migrants. Uzbeks themselves seem amenable: in a <a href="http://www.eabr.org/e/research/centreCIS/projectsandreportsCIS/integration_barometer/?id_16=42460">2014 poll</a>, 68% favoured joining the EEU. But accession would demand that Uzbekistan liberalise its onerous customs regime. That might be a step too far for a new leader, since some of the country’s influential business groups benefit directly from monopolies on imports and exports.</p>
<p>Russia’s final trump card is security. Uzbek officials are nervously following reports of activity by militant groups in northern Afghanistan. But Tashkent is suspicious of Russian offers of military assistance. Uzbek security forces are ubiquitous and relatively competent; they should have little need for Russian backup except in extreme circumstances. </p>
<h2>Contest on the Silk Road</h2>
<p>Unlike Russia, China has plenty of funds to invest. Its new <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/03/chinas-silk-road-belt-outpaces-russias-economic-union/">Silk Road Economic Belt</a> (SREB), part of the ambitious <a href="http://english.gov.cn/beltAndRoad/">Belt and Road Initiative</a> to formalise its economic relationships in the region, is backed by a US$40 billion <a href="http://www.silkroadfund.com.cn/enweb/23773/index.html">Silk Road Fund</a> and the resources of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. </p>
<p>Some big state-run projects have been successful: in June 2016, Chinese premier Xi Jinping joined Karimov to inaugurate a new US$1.45 billion rail link between the Ferghana valley and Tashkent. </p>
<p>But for Uzbekistan to be a key player in the SREB, it needs to make some major changes to its economic policy – and while China is already Uzbekistan’s largest trading partner, Chinese businesses have found its closed economy and arcane bureaucracy difficult to navigate. The Uzbek state has opposed Chinese proposals for an SCO-wide Free Trade Agreement, fearing an influx of Chinese goods that could undermine domestic producers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137043/original/image-20160908-25237-1c3t78x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137043/original/image-20160908-25237-1c3t78x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137043/original/image-20160908-25237-1c3t78x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137043/original/image-20160908-25237-1c3t78x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137043/original/image-20160908-25237-1c3t78x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137043/original/image-20160908-25237-1c3t78x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137043/original/image-20160908-25237-1c3t78x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">China has been making inroads in Uzbekistan for years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/politics-photos/diplomacy-photos/uzbekistan-s-president-islam-karimov-meets-chinese-president-xi-jinping-photos-51527083">EPA/How Hwee Young</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Western states, meanwhile, probably won’t pull ahead in this geopolitical competition. US diplomats have little scope to offer financial aid, and have few if any political channels into the elite. Washington wants to maintain a partnership on Afghanistan through diplomatic engagement and some limited security assistance, but whoever takes control in Tashkent will be wary of appearing too close to them.</p>
<p>In the end, whoever the next Uzbek president is, the country’s conservative policies and fear of Russian domination will continue to slow down Moscow’s drive for influence. The most likely outcome is an updated version of the status quo. Uzbekistan will be symbolically more aligned with Moscow but will remain outside the EEU; there’ll be moves to attract more investments from China and other players, but trade policy won’t radically change. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Uzbekistan will sooner or later have to reform its sclerotic economy and open up to the outside world. If it leaves it too late, its economic decline will stir up social discontent – and begin an inexorable descent into political instability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lewis receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>Central Asia’s most populous country is stagnant and repressive, but its two massive neighbours want in now Islam Karimov is gone.David Lewis, Senior Lecturer, Politics, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/544242016-04-11T13:29:03Z2016-04-11T13:29:03ZHow big a threat is Islamic State in Central Asia?<p>The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) is seen as a growing threat throughout much of the world, its influence extending to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-islamic-state-is-moving-its-egyptian-battle-from-sinai-to-cairo-46439">North Africa</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/catch-up-why-islamic-state-targeted-paris-and-why-its-changing-tack-50731">Europe</a>, and even as far as <a href="https://theconversation.com/jakarta-attacks-is-islamic-states-presence-in-south-east-asia-overstated-52735">Indonesia</a>. Yet for the post-Soviet Central Asian republics the potential consequences of the rise of radical Islamism are not clear.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/opinion/jihads-new-frontier-tajikistan.html?_r=4">For some</a>, IS is simply the latest version of the “Islamic threat” to Central Asian security. The <a href="http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/media-releases/2015/europe/syria-calling-radicalisation-in-central-asia.aspx">International Crisis Group</a>, for example, links growing support for violent extremism with the last few decades’ <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/03/19/reviving-central-asia-s-religious-ties-with-indian-subcontinent-jamaat-al-tabligh">Islamic revival</a> in Central Asia. Others in the media <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/how-many-tajik-isis-recruits-were-arrested-in-turkey/">have been more sceptical</a> about the influence of IS in the region, and the attitude of some Western officials has, more than anything, been rather <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/73836">cheerful</a>. </p>
<p>Yet Central Asian governments have continued to use the “war on terror” as an excuse to <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/74061">crack down on opposition</a>, whether Islamic or otherwise. Oppressive security policies towards Islam in Central Asia are often just short-sighted “fixes” that do little to address the long-term structural problems, and if anything, only aggravate them. In their attempts to deal with perceived threats to civil stability, Central Asian governments may actually end up deepening the very problem they seek to resolve.</p>
<h2>What is the threat?</h2>
<p>Very little is known about IS’s involvement in the countries of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. What we hear is often alarming, or perhaps alarmist.</p>
<p>Kyrgyz authorities cite a raid they mounted on the home of alleged terrorists in July 2015 as <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/74326">evidence of an IS cell in the capital, Bishkek</a>. The recent defection to IS <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tajikistan/11636529/Missing-Tajikistan-police-chief-defects-to-the-Islamic-State.html">of Tajik special forces commander</a>, Gulmorod Khalimov, was also understood as an example of “radicalisation”. While the full context of these events has not been made clear, it’s doubtful that they indicate a broad trend of IS activity in the region. In the case of Khalimov, at least, his defection was probably more tied to his falling out <a href="http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/excas/2015/05/31/halimov/">with the regime</a> than to any jihadist conviction.</p>
<p>Estimates of the number of Central Asians recruited by IS vary. Most are <a href="http://centralasiaprogram.org/blog/2015/02/23/islamic-state-messaging-to-central-asians-migrant-workers-in-russia/">migrant labourers</a> with little religious background, recruited from Russia and other intermediary countries. Unlike wealthier Muslims in Europe and in neighbouring Middle Eastern states, in remote Central Asian villages, where the internet is less accessible, residents have less opportunity to join IS.</p>
<h2>Why are Central Asians joining IS?</h2>
<p>Despite limited opportunities and their small numbers, the Central Asian recruits who have joined the extremist group deserve attention. </p>
<p>The absence of widespread political violence in Central Asia since the 1990s may explain why recruitment is lower in this region than in the Middle East and North Africa, where war and brutality have been common features for many years. But violence is more than physical. Threats to a person’s ethnic and gender identity and to their daily survival can be, and have been, just as much of an incentive. </p>
<p>There also appears to be a link between domestic violence and sympathy for violent extremism, which is particularly visible in the highly <a href="https://www.kirkensnodhjelp.no/contentassets/2b68cbff89b84558b78ffe9fe4b2a250/semiotics-forced-marriages-domestic-violence--final-report.pdf">patriarchal societies</a> that prevail in much, but not all, of Central Asia.</p>
<p>This points to another crucial factor, which is altogether more personal, more gendered and probably more important: feelings of alienation and exclusion. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32960340">Noah Tucker</a>, who has surveyed the social media accounts of Uzbek IS recruits, notes that “young people who go want to belong to something bigger than themselves, often in a situation in which they feel isolated and alone. They are looking for meaning in their lives, for something significant to be a part of.” In many cases, rather than a gradual process of becoming more and more religious, the shift in opinion to support of jihad occurs rapidly.</p>
<h2>The politics of counter-radicalisation</h2>
<p>It seems that IS’ political ideas about the repression of Muslims, at home and abroad, are more important for many <a href="http://centralasiaprogram.org/blog/2015/02/23/islamic-state-messaging-to-central-asians-migrant-workers-in-russia/">Central Asian recruits</a> than its religious beliefs and practices. The political ideas of IS can be held by someone with little or no knowledge of Islamic moral code and with no commitment to its practice in prayer, worship or other rituals. </p>
<p>This distinction between politics and religion – a distinction found neither in the extremist ideology itself, nor in much secular analysis of it — is narrow but important. The existence of this distinction is crucial to make sense of why IS attracts many Muslims, and even some non-Muslims, with little or no knowledge of Islam.</p>
<p>The politics of counter-radicalisation are far more significant than radicalisation itself to Central Asia, which has, so far, been free of IS-inspired terror attacks. Authoritarian governments in the region have increasingly used the hysteria surrounding IS as a pretext to crack down on their non-violent religious and political opponents. </p>
<p>In Tajikistan, for example, the country’s only real opposition party, the Islamic Revival Party (IRPT), was banned and its leaders charged with terrorism offences in September 2015. And then in January 2016, the <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/76696">IRPT’s</a> exiled leader travelled to Iran and met with the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. At first glance, this supposed connection with violent extremism and move to associate with the regime in Iran, widely <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/28/un-summit-isis-iran-not-invited-state-sponsor-terrorism-label">condemned as a state sponsor of terror groups</a>, may seem like evidence of radicalisation – but in reality, the IRPT (very moderate Sunni) and Khameini (a highly conservative Shia) don’t share much religious common ground.</p>
<p>Even so, it is bad news for Central Asia that political and religious opposition can only exist in exile, and with foreign support. Central Asia’s counter-radicalisation policies may end up being a greater threat to democracy than IS-inspired radicalisation itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Heathershaw receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK and the British Council in the USA. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Montgomery has received funding from American Councils, IREX, and the British Council.
He is affiliated with CEDAR--Communities Engaging with Difference and Religion. </span></em></p>Islamic State has been spreading its influence beyond the Middle East – and Central Asia could be in the firing line.John Heathershaw, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of ExeterDavid W. Montgomery, Visiting Scholar at the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/490342015-10-14T05:29:18Z2015-10-14T05:29:18ZWhat are Russia’s grand designs in Central Asia?<p>While international attention has focused on Russian military operations in Ukraine and Syria, Moscow has also been <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/afghanistan-russia-dostum-seeks-military-help/27293696.html">involved</a> in a flurry of diplomatic and security initiatives to address the growing instability in northern Afghanistan. </p>
<p>But its moves to bolster regional security are more than just a response to local security concerns. Russia has a broader strategy that could leave it as the dominant security actor across much of Eurasia.</p>
<p>Even before the shock of the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistan-city-of-kunduz-largely-under-taliban-control-1443447706">Taliban occupation of Kunduz</a> in late September, Russian officials were concerned about the fragile security situation in northern Afghanistan, including the rise of Islamic State in northern Afghanistan and its potential spread to Central Asia and thence to Russia’s large Muslim community. As if to emphasise the domestic threat, on October 12 Russian police announced that they had <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/12/isis-trained-russians-foiled-moscow-terror-attack">uncovered a terrorist plot in Moscow</a> apparently involving a group of Central Asian militants.</p>
<p>Insecurity in Afghanistan may pose a potential security threat for Moscow, but it is being seized upon as a major geopolitical opportunity. Against a backdrop of failed Western policies across much of Russia’s southern flank, Moscow is moving quickly to fill a security vacuum in the region. It is strengthening existing alliances to consolidate its hold over former Soviet republics in Central Asia and reshaping the security dynamics of the region around its own favoured security groupings – the <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/int/csto.htm">Collective Security Treaty Organisation</a> (CSTO) and the <a href="http://www.sectsco.org/EN123/">Shanghai Cooperation Organisation</a> (SCO).</p>
<p>The first step has been a series of meeting with Central Asian leaders, all on the front line in case of renewed Afghan insecurity. A meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Emomali Rakhmon, the president of Tajikistan, led to promises of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/07/us-russia-tajikistan-defence-idUSKCN0S10TT20151007">more attack helicopters</a> to bolster the existing Russian military based in the country, which has become the hub of a <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-far-outpost-of-great-powers/27141036.html">well-developed defence system</a> against cross-border infiltration.</p>
<h2>Crisis and opportunity</h2>
<p>Putin also took time out of his birthday celebrations in Sochi to meet Almazbek Atambayev, the president of Kyrgyzstan, a country that has become the linchpin of Russia’s security strategy in the region. Until 2014 Kyrgyzstan hosted a US airbase, but as I <a href="https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/18208/Lewis%20Russia%20and%20Kyrgyzstan%202015.pdf?sequence=1">explored in a recent paper</a>, Russia has been remarkably successful in ousting the Americans and turning Kyrgyzstan into a dependable ally in the region.</p>
<p>If Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are relatively relaxed about an enhanced Russian military presence, the Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, is instinctively allergic to talk of renewed Russian influence and <a href="http://www.academia.edu/4058733/Uzbekistan_s_challenging_withdrawal_from_the_CSTO">pulled out of the Russian-led CSTO in 2012</a>. </p>
<p>Now the northern Afghan crisis offers an opportunity to bring Uzbekistan back into Moscow’s embrace. A delegation from the Russian MOD, led by deputy minister Anatoly Antonov, has recently <a href="http://www.uzmetronom.com/2015/10/07/tovarishhi_po_oruzhiju.html">paid the country its first high-level visit since 2007</a>.</p>
<p>There was no coverage of the Russian visit in Uzbekistan’s heavily censored press. Instead, the <a href="http://www.ng.ru/cis/2015-10-08/1_ashabad.html">newpapers led on a summit</a> with neighbouring Turkmen president, Gurmanguly Berdymukhamedov. The two presidents both have serious security concerns about Afghanistan, but both want to manage them without Russian assistance. Both states have appalling human rights records, limiting the potential for Western aid, and it may be hard to refuse Russian offers of help if unrest grows along their borders with Afghanistan.</p>
<h2>Friends reunited</h2>
<p>Afghan officials have also been in Moscow, seeking assistance. Vice-president and Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, has sought to revive old ties during a recent visit, also paying a side visit to the influential Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/afghanistan-russia-dostum-seeks-military-help/27293696.html">to share experiences of “fighting terrorism”</a>. If the Afghan situation worsens significantly, Dostum offers the potential for Moscow to build up a further band of loyal forces in the north of Afghanistan, in an effective re-run of its Taliban-era support for the Northern Alliance.</p>
<p>Other Afghan government officials attended a conference of SCO members and observers on Afghanistan in Moscow. The chief of Russia’s general staff, first deputy defence minister, Valery Gerasimov, took time out to give a speech that highlighted the failure of US policy in the Middle East, leaving little doubt that Moscow now sees Afghanistan through the same geopolitical prism as it frames Syria. Russian intelligence officials regularly claim that IS is part of a <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/75486">broader US plot to destabilise Central Asia and Russia</a> from the south.</p>
<p>Still, there is no appetite for Russia to get involved in Afghanistan in the way it has in Syria. There are still bitter memories of the humiliating Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. But an anti-IS stance in the region provides Russia with the opportunity to consolidate its presence in Central Asia and become the centre of new alliances in the region – with SCO partners such as China, and with Iran – and to sponsor anti-Taliban and anti-IS forces in northern Afghanistan.</p>
<p>More intriguingly, some Russian officials see Moscow’s new strategic initiatives in Syria and Afghanistan as a chance to carve out a significant role in a wider region. State Duma speaker, Sergei Naryshkin, has been talking of a “<a href="http://www.eaeunion.org/?lang=en">Greater Eurasia</a>”, linking Russia not only to former Soviet republics, but more widely to a range of allies in Syria, Iran, India and China. </p>
<p>This may be just another of Russia’s historical spatial fantasies for now, but in a rapidly changing international environment, Moscow will try to use its dominance in Central Asia as a first step towards shaping a new regional security order.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lewis has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council project 'Rising Powers and Conflict Management in Central Asia'.</span></em></p>A renewed security focus on Afghanistan is part of Vladimir Putin’s plan to re-energise Russia’s vision of a ‘Greater Eurasia’.David Lewis, Senior Lecturer, Politics, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/325132014-10-03T16:23:01Z2014-10-03T16:23:01ZHumans drained the Aral Sea once before – but there are no free refills this time round<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60762/original/bzrpmmh6-1412332872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Worth it for cheap cotton?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/so11e/8349515837">so11e</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Aral Sea has reached a new low, literally and figuratively; new <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84437">satellite images</a> from NASA show that, for the first time in its recorded history, the largest basin has completely dried up. </p>
<p>However, the Aral Sea has an interesting history – and as recently as 600-700 years ago it was as small, if not smaller, than today. The Aral recovered from that setback to become the world’s fourth largest lake, but things might not be so easy this time round. Today, more people than ever rely on irrigation from rivers that should instead flow into the sea, and the impact of irrigation is compounded by another new factor: climate change.</p>
<p>Sandwiched between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea is actually a lake, albeit a salty, terminal one. It is salty because evaporation of water from the lake surface is greater than the amount of water being replenishing through rivers flowing in. It is terminal because there is no outflowing river. This makes the Aral Sea very sensitive to variations in its water balance caused either by climate or by humans. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60768/original/xfr32tb3-1412334429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Aral in August 2000, already less than half its 1960 size.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84437">NASA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, the sea has long been a <em>cause celebre</em> in the world of environmental catastrophes, an exemplar of the devastating harm that ill thought-out economic policies can have on the environment. Intensive irrigation of cotton plantations in the deserts of the western Soviet Union prevented water reaching the Aral Sea, leading to the drastically low levels we see today. This in turn meant the highly-salty waters <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140120?journalCode=earth">killed off</a> many plants and animals.</p>
<p>During early Soviet Union times, the Aral Sea and its fringing wetlands were a significant resource for the fishing industries, agriculture, animal husbandry and fur trapping. But in the 1950s, the extent of irrigated land used for “white gold” (cotton) increased dramatically from 4 million to 8 million hectares, with Uzbekistan becoming one of the world’s <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113001318">largest cotton producers</a>. To feed cotton’s insatiable demand for water, the Karakum Canal was built out of the desert sands and because it was unlined, water losses were extremely high. </p>
<p>During the late 1960s, the amount of water evaporating from the Aral Sea become greater than the amount of water entering the lake, so lake levels declined dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s. More than 75% of the surface area and more than 90% of the lake’s volume has been lost. In 1987-1988, the lake split into two, and the Large and Small Aral Sea basins were created. International efforts have been made to protect the Small Aral Sea through the construction of dams, and this has meant that lake levels here have <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2005/09/01/saving-a-corner-of-the-aral-sea">increased</a>. The Large Aral Sea continued to shrink and subsequently split itself into two basins; a deeper, smaller west Large Aral and a more shallow, but expansive, east Large Aral. And it is this latter basin which NASA images show had dried out completely this summer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60769/original/v8sg3p7m-1412334524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">August 19, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84437">NASA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The environmental impact of the drying Aral has been devastating. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and hundreds of species have disappeared. Toxic metals and agrochemicals (herbicides, pesticides, insecticides), used to prevent disease and pests from lowering cotton yields, found their way into the sea through its rivers. But because the Aral is a terminal lake, the pollutants were never washed out, and they instead sunk to the bottom sediments. Now these bottom sediments are exposed to the air, they are blown up into the atmosphere as <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=19853">toxic, salty dust storms</a>, which can spread for many hundreds of kilometres causing increased deaths and chronic disease, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1719339/">especially the young</a>.</p>
<p>However, lower lake levels have also exposed ancient irrigation systems and mausoleums surrounded by settlements (some remains of which are still under water), built during the late Middle Ages. This means that in certain parts of the Aral, lake levels during 13th-14th century must have been lower. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60781/original/gbh6c56b-1412344297.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60781/original/gbh6c56b-1412344297.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60781/original/gbh6c56b-1412344297.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60781/original/gbh6c56b-1412344297.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60781/original/gbh6c56b-1412344297.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60781/original/gbh6c56b-1412344297.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60781/original/gbh6c56b-1412344297.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Genghis Khan, conqueror of the world, diverter of rivers.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We still aren’t sure exactly what caused such extreme regression, but a cooler, drier climate played a role. The 13th century Mongol invasion of central Asia also led to the Amu Dar'ya, one of two major rivers that feed the Aral, being <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gea.20135/abstract">diverted to the Caspian Sea</a>. Clearly humans were a major factor in the Aral’s previous dry spell. </p>
<p>By the late 16th century, the Aral Sea started to fill up again, in part because irrigated channels meant the Amu Dar'ya once more <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113001318">flowed into the lake</a>. A key question that remains today therefore is how much of the lake’s current regression is due to intensive irrigation and how much may be due to climate change over the past 50 years. Recent studies suggest <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474706511000489">only 14%</a> of the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the 1960s was caused by climate change, with irrigation by far the biggest culprit. </p>
<p>Researchers looking at what will happen to Aral Sea levels with global warming over the next few decades have combined several model predictions together and expect <a href="http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/1335/2012/hess-16-1335-2012.html">net water loss to increase</a> as more evaporation leads to less river inflow. However, if irrigation of the rivers continues, then net water loss will be even greater as river flow into the Aral Sea will essentially cease. </p>
<p>Climate change may be one of the world’s great problems but over-irrigation is at least possible to reverse with the right policy changes. But the two issues together make a disastrous combination. The future for much of the Aral Sea does not look great.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anson Mackay received funding from INTAS between 2003-2005 to research water level change in the Aral Sea over recent millennia.</span></em></p>The Aral Sea has reached a new low, literally and figuratively; new satellite images from NASA show that, for the first time in its recorded history, the largest basin has completely dried up. However…Anson Mackay, Professor of Environmental Change, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/302262014-08-08T05:17:04Z2014-08-08T05:17:04ZExam cheating ain’t what it was – stopping it now takes drastic measures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55949/original/fxc9vymm-1407404418.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tried and tested.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-162333173/stock-photo-student-cheating-writing-answers-on-arm.html?src=bJsgvd1J01Qk0mQCgGQdiQ-1-27">Cheating via Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent move by the <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-sms-internet-university-exam-police-cheating/25477815.html">Uzbekistan government</a> to block access to the internet – coincidentally on the same day as national university entrance examinations – is rather an extreme example of the ongoing battle between authorities and would-be cheaters over the fairness of educational assessment. </p>
<p>Throughout the world, students of all ages in schools, colleges and universities are under increasing pressure to perform well in “high-stakes” tests. The outcome of these tests really matters for the future life chances of students in the global economy. For example, in <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-university-students-cheating/24662540.html">Uzbekistan the university entrance exams decide which 58,000 of the 431,000</a> taking the test will be able to go to university. In Nepal you can’t even apply for a driving licence unless you pass your <a href="http://soce.gov.np/">School Leaving Certificate</a>. </p>
<p>And such tests aren’t just “high-stakes” for pupils. Teachers around the world are also under huge pressure to raise pass rates and grades year on year, to improve their school’s position in league tables or to ensure they get their salary rise. No wonder the exam papers in Nepal have to be delivered to the testing centres under armed guard. </p>
<p>Temptations for students and their teachers to cheat are growing ever more intense. Even if only the tiniest minority ever try to do so, their methods must become increasingly sophisticated and devious to avoid detection. And in a world dominated by smartphones and other new technologies, exam invigilators need to up their game as well.</p>
<h2>Back in the day</h2>
<p>In the old days it was fairly straightforward. If you wanted to cheat in an exam, you wrote key facts that you might forget on the inside of your pencil case, up your arm or on the palm of your hand (which was always a bit risky as you tended to sweat).</p>
<p>If the tables in the school gym were well-spaced out it was always a bit difficult to see over your neighbours’ shoulders to copy them – and they might have written the wrong answers anyway. Putting your hand up for a toilet break was a good bet; you could either sneak a look at the best student’s answers as you walked past, or hide a copy of the textbook or your notes in the cubicle to consult. Even if the invigilator accompanied you to the toilet, they wouldn’t come into the cubicle with you; it was even possible to add some strategically-placed academic graffiti on the inside of the door.</p>
<p>Collaborative cheating, such as passing surreptitious notes around, was a high-risk strategy as the invigilator might spot it at any minute. But I’ve been an exam invigilator and I know how soporific a two-hour stint in a hot and airless exam hall can be: it’s easy to miss things. </p>
<p>Yet I don’t think that I’d miss some of the more outlandish examples from Uzbekistan, such <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-university-students-cheating/24662540.html">paid cheating rings</a>, with people secreted away in “bunkers” correcting wrong answers. Surely that would require collusion from the school, and this can of course happen, particularly in less well-regulated systems. </p>
<p>The widely publicised example of a former examination board official in England <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8005405.stm">running seminars to help</a> teachers “lead” their pupils through oral language exams suggests that temptations exist in all countries and at all levels.</p>
<p>With the advent of increasingly sophisticated calculators permitted in some maths and science exams, enterprising students could program in key formulae or write them on the back. As a result, some examination boards have started issuing <a href="http://www.seab.gov.sg/calculatorList/GuidelinesCalculators.pdf">approved lists of such devices</a>. </p>
<h2>Smarter cheating</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55950/original/52zmbmks-1407404825.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55950/original/52zmbmks-1407404825.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55950/original/52zmbmks-1407404825.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55950/original/52zmbmks-1407404825.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55950/original/52zmbmks-1407404825.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55950/original/52zmbmks-1407404825.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/55950/original/52zmbmks-1407404825.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No phone zone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fstorr/174016466/sizes/o/">Francis Storr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>But the real step-change in the potential for cheating has come with the smartphone, with which you can look up the answer to any question and even download whole model essays geared to your particular exam. The most straightforward response to this is of course to ban phones from exam halls – certainly no school or university in the UK would let you in with one. Typically all you are allowed are some pens and pencils in a clear plastic bag. </p>
<p>But it can be difficult to detect whether someone has a smart device on them without performing a rather intrusive body search. And there are other devices on the horizon. In 2013, one <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/12/belgian-college-bans-all-watch-wearing-during-exams/">Belgian university</a> banned all watches because of the possiblity of cheating with smart watches. Google glass is another future challenge: but would all exam invigilators recognise a pair if they saw them? </p>
<p>It’s actually pretty easy to spot copying from the internet, particularly if the essay has been submitted electronically as a piece of coursework. All UK universities and many schools now require students to submit work to plagiarism-detection software such as <a href="http://turnitin.com/">Turnitin</a>, which flags up strings of words that appear anywhere on the web, together with all previous essays submitted to its database. This means that some students get caught out plagiarising themselves from a previous assignment (it’s perhaps just as well that some academics’ publications aren’t subject to the same scrutiny).</p>
<h2>Keep it in context</h2>
<p>But the use of coursework as part of high-stakes assessment in schools is dying out fast in England. <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-look-exams-from-gove-same-old-political-ambition-19785">Recent changes to GCSE exams</a> have replaced most coursework with end-of-course exams or controlled assessments, which are undertaken during normal lesson time, but under strict conditions. </p>
<p>The assumption behind these changes is that coursework – especially if done at home with parental support – encouraged cheating. Yet the replacement of this varied assessment diet by one consisting only of pencil-and-paper tests risks disadvantaging many students while compromising the validity of our attempts to measure attainment. Perhaps a little cheating is the price we pay for an examination system that gives fair chances to all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30226/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent move by the Uzbekistan government to block access to the internet – coincidentally on the same day as national university entrance examinations – is rather an extreme example of the ongoing…Dan Davies, Head of Research - School of Education, Bath Spa UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.