Where Are All Our Sheep? : Kyrgyzstan, a Global Political Arena [1 ed.] 9781782387848, 9781782387831

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Where Are All Our Sheep?

Where Are All Our Sheep? : Kyrgyzstan, a Global Political Arena, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

DISLOCATIONS

General Editors: August Carbonella, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Don Kalb, University of Utrecht & Central European University, Linda Green, University of Arizona The immense dislocations and suffering caused by neoliberal globalization, the retreat of the welfare state in the last decades of the twentieth century, and the heightened military imperialism at the turn of the twenty-first century have raised urgent questions about the temporal and spatial dimensions of power. Through stimulating critical perspectives and new and cross-disciplinary frameworks that reflect recent innovations in the social and human sciences, this series provides a forum for politically engaged and theoretically imaginative responses to these important issues of late modernity. Volume 1

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Crude Domination Edited by Andrea Berhrends, Stephen P. Reyna and Günther Schlee

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Blood and Oranges: European Markets and Immigrant Labor in Rural Greece Christopher M. Lawrence

Communities of Complicity: Everyday Ethics in Rural China Hans Steinmüller

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Struggles for Home: Violence, Hope and the Movement of People Edited by Stef Jansen and Staffan Löfving

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Slipping Away: Banana Politics and Fair Trade in the Eastern Caribbean Mark Moberg

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Made in Sheffield: An Ethnography of Industrial Work and Politics Massimiliano Mollona Volume 6

Biopolitics, Militarism and Development: Eritrea in the Twenty-First Century Edited by David O’Kane and Tricia Redeker Hepner Volume 7

When Women Held the Dragon’s Tongue and Other Essays in Historical Anthropology Hermann Rebel Volume 8

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Intellectuals and (Counter-) Politics: Essays in Historical Realism Gavin Smith Volume 13

In Blood and Fire: Toward a Global Anthropology of Labor Edited by Sharryn Kasmir and August Carbonella Volume 14

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Yearnings in the Meantime: ‘Normal Lives’ and the State in a Sarajevo Apartment Complex Stef Jansen Volume 16

Where Are All Our Sheep? Kyrgyzstan, A Global Political Arena Boris Petric, Translated by Cynthia Schoch

Where Are All Our Sheep? : Kyrgyzstan, a Global Political Arena, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Where Are All Our Sheep? Kyrgyzstan, A Global Political Arena

_ Boris Petric

Copyright © 2015. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Translated by Cynthia Schoch

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Where Are All Our Sheep? : Kyrgyzstan, a Global Political Arena, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Published by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com English-language edition © 2015 Berghahn Books French-language edition @ 2013 by Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme On a mangé nos moutons: Le Kirghizstan, du berger au Biznesman All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pétric, Boris-Mathieu, 1972–  [On a mangé nos moutons. English]  Where are all our sheep? : Kyrgyzstan, a global political arena / Boris Petric ; translated by Cynthia Schoch.     pages cm. — (Dislocations ; volume 16)   Translation of the author’s On a mangé nos moutons.   Includes bibliographical references and index.  1. Kyrgyzstan—Economic conditions—1991– 2. Kyrgyzstan—Politics and government—1991– 3. Globalization—Kyrgyzstan. I. Title.   HC420.7.P4813 2015   320.95843—dc23 2015003322

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed on acid-free paper

ISBN 978-1-78238-783-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78238-784-8 (ebook)

Where Are All Our Sheep? : Kyrgyzstan, a Global Political Arena, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

CONTENTS

Preface

vi

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Acknowledgments

xiii

Map of Central Asia

xv

Map of Kyrgyzstan

xvi

Introduction.

Someone Ate All Our Sheep

Chapter 1

Manas, UNESCO, and the Kyrgyz Fabula

28

Chapter 2

Kyrgyzstan and Good Governance Experts

45

Chapter 3

Elections and the Promotion of Democracy

59

Chapter 4

The Fall of the Common House

71

Chapter 5

The Bazaar: Symbol of a Society of Traders

88

Chapter 6

Civil Society and Election Monitoring

108

Chapter 7

The Transnationalization of Politics

131

Conclusion

The Kyrgyz Laboratory and Global Politics

146

Afterword

From Kyrgyz Fabula to Ethnic Apocalypse?

154

Appendix 1

Kyrgyz Republic Timeline

164

Appendix 2

Census of Kyrgyzstan Population

166

Index

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1

167

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PREFACE

I can still remember my amazement on arriving in Kyrgyzstan for the first time. The atmosphere was often oppressive in the region’s airports, but the Bishkek airport had a friendly feel to it. Crossing the border went smoothly. The symbols of national sovereignty were discreet and the big ideological slogans had given way to advertisements for major brandname cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. I did, however, come face to face with a big poster of Askar Akayev, the Kyrgyz president, posing in a suit and tie and wearing a Kalpak1 in front of snowcapped mountains. He sported a benevolent smile and with a simple bilingual slogan greeted travelers: “Welcome.” “Kosh Kelizinder.” This show of goodwill has been at the center of a larger political design ever since the country gained independence. Opening up to the rest of the world was seen as an inescapable opportunity for this former Soviet Republic. Crossing a country’s border is often an excellent indicator of the relationship a society maintains with foreigners and reveals the role the state intends to play in the regulation of the flow of goods, ideas, and persons. Border checkpoints serve as interstitial spaces, where one generally feels a certain nervous excitement going through customs procedures. I went to Bishkek in November 2009, when practically the whole world was caught up in the swine flu hysteria. International airports worldwide had reinforced their disease control measures and Manas International Airport was no exception. When I got off the plane, I noticed that the airport staff were all wearing facemasks. I went straight to the counter where a visa could be bought quickly. The government official told me that the price was exactly the same in euros as in dollars although the exchange rate was 1€ for $1.50. Seeing my displeasure, the official offered to exchange my euros for dollars at the currency exchange desk located on the other side of passport control. She motioned to a customs officer, who came right over. The customs officer was wearing a facemask. I expected to undergo special security measures since I was arriving from a country where the epidemic was at its peak. Instead, the officer smiled at me and shook my – vi –

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Preface | vii

hand. He lowered his facemask and offered to accompany me to exchange my money. Together we went back through passport control and bemused Western travelers. Along the way, we struck up a conversation, first in Kyrgyz and then in Russian. He asked me if France was going to win the soccer World Cup. We started joking about the French coach who was known internationally for his outbursts.2 Each time the officer spoke, he lowered his mask. I exchanged my euros, and, on the way back from the exchange counter, he offered to spare me the misery of waiting in the long passport control line for an additional $20. We then engaged in a discussion full of innuendos, each putting forth his arguments in a jocular tone. I was not particularly in a hurry, and I also wanted to see how far I could push. In the end, for an additional $5, I picked up my visa and went straight through passport control, avoiding the long line. Kyrgyz society has adapted quickly to the new order of globalization characterized by a major increase in worldwide exchanges. I had wrongly assumed that I was going to a country that had remained on the fringe of this phenomenon. I was even driven by the idea of discovering vast mountainous areas populated by shepherds living on a roof of the world, shielded from world influences. From the few articles available about this country at the time, I assumed that I would be able to observe Kyrgyz tribal organizations and their effects on the logics of power in Kyrgyzstan. Instead, it quickly occurred to me that I had been doubly naive, not only in my assumptions about Kyrgyzstan’s social reality but also in failing to observe the irreversible change in the way anthropologists look at the world today. Our society produces images of otherness that nourish our fantasies of discovering worlds that have remained “unspoiled” by the major influences of the modern world. Today, there is one such predominant image of Kyrgyzstan. Travel and outdoor adventure brochures, as well as photo and television reportages, depict a magical landscape with spectacular barren mountains dotted with nomads on horseback. These suggestive images instantly invite us to discover a remote world in a lost paradise. Paradoxically, a more negative image also exists in some media, where Kyrgyzstan is described as a ravaged natural and/or social world. They claim that Soviet-era industrialization has left the country’s inhabitants with nothing but open-air toxic dumps. The country is described as a social world on the road to perdition, plagued by privatization, Islamization, and poverty, heightened by the growth in illegal activities ranging from prostitution and heroin smuggling to organ trafficking.3 These two clichés of Kyrgyz identity conveyed in the Western imagination correspond to a certain idea of the anthropologist’s work: either to reveal a remote and untouched space or to describe a delicately surviving

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social customs on the verge of extinction. Indeed, bordering the former USSR and China, this small country is imagined to be the perfect anthropological playground. It should, however, be clear that this book strives to follow a much different approach. The Kyrgyz Republic is of prime interest for anthropologists for several reasons. As a component of the former Soviet Union, this part of Central Asia was one of the major political experiments of the twentieth century, “the age of extremes,” to use Eric Hobsbawn’s expression. These experiments sought to design an excessively rationalized social world where mankind could overcome the forces of nature. People would strive to achieve total control over their environment by undertaking gigantic enterprises to harness nature. This, of course, lead to a host of environmental disasters, including Chernobyl and, more recently, the draining of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. Phenomenal infrastructures were developed to overcome life’s material difficulties, which led to an unprecedented transformation of living conditions for many population groups. Kyrgyzstan also has its share of this legacy. A handful of firefighters exposed to radiation in Chernobyl live in Bishkek today, its landfills are full of radioactive waste,4 and its natural environment has been overexploited for agriculture and livestock breeding. The Soviet experiment also infused the Kyrgyz social memory with world events that link us all together. Monuments commemorating those who died during the Second World War are part of the landscape in many villages and recall the unfathomable number of lives lost in that war. I still remember being astonished at meeting Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek kolkhoz members who had left their Central Asian villages for the Eastern Front to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Some of these veterans even knew my native region in the Southwest of France, where they had been prisoners of war. The Kyrgyz territory also bears the marks of modern infrastructures. The former Soviet Union developed roads, airports, communication networks with post offices throughout the territory, television and radio stations covering the entire country, an education system that led to a high literacy rate in the region, along with an extended health system with hospitals and clinics throughout. Dams and hydroelectric power stations were built to tame the abundant flow of water from the Tian Shan and the Pamir mountain systems, to irrigate Central Asia, and supply its inhabitants with electricity. One can still observe vestiges of Soviet industry, dating back to when the Kyrgyz Republic was host to many textile industry complexes and weapons factories that used cutting-edge technology and highly skilled workers to run them. The Soviet legacy influenced social behaviors as well. Society was permeated with a whole set of rationales that had little to do with ideology

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or coercion from an omnipotent state. In the 1980s, many segments of social life involved systematically skirting society’s normative vision. There were, therefore, two levels of normative and pragmatic behavior. For instance, it was possible for one to be a party member and yet hold a religious funeral for one’s father. The chairman of a kolkhoz could abide by the Plan and at the same time divert part of the production in accordance with some other social rationale. Everyone knew the rules of the game. It was thus possible to be loyal to the state while devising strategies to circumvent the rules. Indeed, citizens relied on very complex social networks to organize a dual life, remnants of which are evident in the social workings of today’s Kyrgyz Republic. Kyrgyzstan, however, has also experienced significant changes that can be directly linked to globalization. This small country, inhabited by five million people, faced a huge acceleration of flow of people, ideas, and goods. It can even serve as a prime example of this phenomenon. After the fall of the USSR, unlike its neighbors, Kyrgyzstan could not count on cotton, natural gas, or oil reserves to thrive on its own. As one of the poorest republics in the Soviet Union, it had been heavily dependent on Soviet subsidies. After independence, therefore, President Akayev’s administration, to escape a dire situation, decided to steer the country towards a wholesale opening up to the rest of the world. Today, Kyrgyzstan has become a model for the many donors who have come to the country. The president has implemented reforms to adopt a market economy and democracy. The privatization of the economy has had instant social and political effects. The country has thus become a complex mix where one can still feel the effects of Soviet legacy alongside fresh impetus being created by the numerous exchanges Kyrgyz citizens are weaving with the outside world. The story told herein takes root in a specific place—a former livestock breeding kolkhoz located in the Naryn region of northern Kyrgyzstan, the largest region of the country, and also the least populated. The experience includes many trips back and forth to Bishkek,5 the capital. Throughout my years of fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan, I continually traveled back and forth through this valley, high in the mountains, to immerse myself in the ins and outs of the local political networks. This occasionally took me to the regional capital, Naryn. The city, hemmed in by mountains, is a remnant of a bygone industrial society. Settled in the heart of a harsh environment, the town used to host workers employed in the industrial complexes and a contingent of soldiers in charge of keeping watch over the eastern border, which was tightly sealed off from its Chinese neighbors. People of different nationalities lived together. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the tall apartment buildings lining the main street have

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x | Preface

been abandoned as its inhabitants leave to seek a better fate in Russia. Former Kyrgyz kolkhoz members from the surrounding countryside now occupy these buildings. My journey also took me to Bishkek, where many Kyrgyz flock for business. For the past twenty years, Bishkek has been confronted with an exodus of its “European”* population, which has been replaced by former kolkhoz members fleeing rural poverty and misery. I also followed other Kyrgyz who have opted to work in Russia temporarily. Out of a total population of five million, an estimated one million Kyrgyz are emigrant workers. This mobility is also characterized by the arrival of foreigners in a region that used to be closed to them. The new arrivals make up a somewhat peculiar group that does not necessarily want to settle and live in the country. I remember meeting a group of young French people in the plane traveling from Paris to Central Asia. They were dressed like Boy Scouts in shorts and button-down shirts, with red bandanas around their necks. They were members of a European Catholic group on their way to climb Lenin Peak, which is over twenty-three thousand feet high.6 These young adventure-seekers were not only interested in the physical challenge but also had a specific goal: to take down the Soviet flag that was still flying on this roof of the world. According to them, it was “absolutely necessary to wipe out the mountaintop symbol of the disgrace of the twentieth century.” The new actors in Kyrgyz society are numerous and are driven by various motivations. Businessmen are looking for new markets. Some people have come to evangelize under the auspices of Protestant NGO charities; they see Kyrgyzstan as a land of milk and honey for Christianization and readily compare it to what South Korea once was. Others preach spreading a “true Islam” that is uniform and universal, purged of all local tradition. These preachers advocate the end of a Kyrgyz state that divides Muslims and defend the idea of creating a Central Asian caliphate uniting all Muslims. In a less vehement manner, thousands of NGO and international organization workers and diplomats justify their presence by putting forth their will to help Kyrgyzstan steer itself toward a market economy, freedom, and democracy. I thus came across a large number of people who have in common the desire to help reform this small country. Some of them will be discussed here, more particularly those connected with NGOs, foundations, and international organizations working more specifically to promote democracy. This group of expatriates share the motive of wanting to * In the Soviet and Post-soviet contexts, european population refers to Russian, Ukrainians, jews (etc), setled in Central Asian Republics

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do things “for others.” These individuals and these institutions, with very different motivations, are driven by the same desire to show the way for Kyrgyz society to follow, even to direct it. In this context, how should the Kyrgyz’ peculiar attitude of goodwill toward the multitudes arriving and crossing through their society be interpreted? In any case, it is clear to me that the social relationships being created through the variety of meetings and projects ought to be the topic of an anthropological investigation. It is obvious that an interest in Kyrgyzstan does not lie solely in describing a remote world since the country is at the heart of the globalization process. Calls for democracy and the glorification of economic liberalism are reinterpreted according to local reality. The country, which has been completely transformed by economic liberalization, no longer manufactures much of anything. Kyrgyzstan is therefore creating for itself an international image as a champion reformer to attract all sorts of opportunities. Socially, the emblematic figures of the “businessman” and the “demokrat” have become the local expression of this desire to adapt to a new international situation. This book sets out to give an account of a journey into the heart of Kyrgyz political logic. Most of the protagonists are not anonymous, as they are primarily public figures. A great number of Kyrgyz elected officials and international experts agreed to open their doors and willingly answered my questions. Nonetheless, the journey is not a chronicle of the major events that have punctuated the Kyrgyz political scene since independence. I will sometimes refer to them in passing, but most of all I will strive to describe the weaving of relationships that takes place outside of the main dates that are generally discussed by specialists of the region in tracking the country’s political evolution. It is therefore an invitation to a journey that does not follow a timeline, a journey in the literal sense of the word because, although this ethnographic investigation starts out on the high plateaus of Kyrgyzstan, it continues on into the heart of a society that has been opening and redefining its contours for a little over twenty years. Bon voyage.

Note to the Reader The country discussed in this book is officially called the Kyrgyz Republic. I have opted for Kyrgyzstan, as it is the name most commonly used internationally. Where the use of certain vernacular terms seemed necessary, they have been placed in italics and explained in a footnote the first time they appear.

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Notes

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1. Traditional felt hat. 2. This is typically what anthropologists call a joking relationship. 3. The reactions to a photo essay “De la Soie à l’héroïne” in the magazine Marie-Claire in 8 of April 2008 are an example. 4. The city Mailu Su, which is near an old uranium mine, was considered one of the most polluted cities in the world in 2009, according to the Blacksmith Institute in New York. 5. The city was called Frunze until 1992. It was named in 1918 after a general in the Red Army. The city was called Pishpek during the colonial era. 6. Two summits are particularly well known, Pobeda Peak (7439m) and Lenin Peak (7134m).

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the outcome of individual research started in Kyrgyzstan in 2001 involving a dozen trips until the end of 2010. It was largely inspired by a long stay in Central Asia when I lived in the region from 1996 to 2000. This work is also the result of a myriad of exchanges and joint undertakings. I would like to thank in particular two people: my colleague and friend, Jean-François Gossiaux, an anthropologist with whom I have led a seminar for several years at the school of Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris; and my Kyrgyz friend and colleague, Amantour Japparov, with whom I shared a great many of my experiences and reflections in the field in Kyrgyzstan. Without the quality of these exchanges, this book would have turned out differently. It benefited greatly from their comments, suggestions, and also their analyses of subjects that we have been studying together for many years. This study was carried out through my participation in various research programs, in particular the Ministry of Research program directed by André Bourgeot, entitled “Nomadism, Identity, Ethnicity: Space and Local Powers (Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Niger, Mali).” Through exchanges with my colleagues Amantour Japparov, Svetlana Jacquesson (Max Plancke Institute), Jean-François Gossiaux (EHESS), Oleg Kuznetsov (University of Chita, Russia), and Elena Filippova (Ethnology Institute of Moscow), I have been able to share their experience in different cultural areas and take part in joint fieldwork in Siberia in the autonomous territory of Aga and in Kyrgyzstan (2001 and 2002). I thank them all. I also participated in a group study on the process of globalization in the framework of another Research Ministry program, “Globalization as Knowledge: Science, Measures and Action,” led by Irène Bellier (LAIOS— Laboratoire d’anthropologie des institutions et organisations sociales). Working with colleagues from other disciplines (sociology, geography, and economics) and cultural areas allowed me to compare my approach and discover works that would probably have remained unknown to me in the perspective of understanding the singularity of our era of proliferating international institutions and transnational networks. – xiii –

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I also owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues who participated in a National Research Agency (ANR) program on “Democracy Promotion and Good Governance Programs in Various Countries” that I led. Exchanges with David Recondo (Sciences Po), Romain Bertrand (Sciences Po), Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos (IRD), Alessandro Monsutti (IHEID/Yale) Dejan Dimitrijevic (University of Nice), Giorgio Blundo (EHESS), and Laetitia Atlani (University of Paris X) and the comparative dimension of our research program considerably enriched the content of my argument. The results of this research is published in a book I edited: Democracy at Large: NGOs, Political Foundations, Think Tanks and International Organizations (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012). My students, especially the doctoral students who participated in the Post-Soviet Central Asian Anthropology Group that I lead, also nourished my research. I would like particularly to thank Ariane Zévaco, Yves-Marie Davenel, Johanne Pabion, Eunsil Yim, Sophie Aldric, and Aurélie Biard. I am, of course, grateful to all of my colleagues who invited me to present my work and offered their critical eye. I thank my LAIOS colleagues and in particular Marc Abélès, whose many comments and constructive criticism have been beneficial. Without the precious administrative organization of Huguette Agamennone and Nicole Letoux, my numerous missions would not have been possible. The comments and criticisms of various readers have been extremely valuable in finalizing the manuscript. I would especially like to thank Chloé Pathé, Evelyne Séguy, Emmanuelle Corne, Régis Genté, Kelley Sams, and Emmanuel François. I am also indebted to people who took time to speak to me about their country and their lives and often shared their everyday life with me, from the shepherd to the Kygryz member of parliament. I would like to thank most of all the inhabitants of Togolok Moldo and the Manbetov family. Lastly, I also thank Cynthia Schoch for the quality of her translation, ably seconded by her trainee, Abigail Wahl Genon.

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– Introduction –

SOMEONE ATE ALL OUR SHEEP

_ Kyrgyzstan used to be a little paradise … all of our riches have disappeared. … What happened to all our factories? What happened to all our sheep? —Turdakun Usubaliyev Former first secretary of the Kyrgyz Republic, USSR

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On the Kyrgyz Highlands Together with several of my colleagues, I finally discovered Song Kol Lake on a beautiful summer day in 2001. The lake was located at an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet on one of the famous highlands in the north of the country. The drive up was difficult because the paved road was no longer maintained on a regular basis. We wanted to spend several weeks there observing the summer lifestyle of livestock herding, considered to be the traditional Kyrgyz occupation. After several long and hard miles uphill, our car reached the summit before immediately shooting down toward vast, empty highlands. In the distance we could make out little white dots scattered throughout the green pastures around the lake. There were a few dozen yurts sheltering several families that had come from the surrounding valleys with their small herds of sheep, goats, and horses. My Kyrgyz colleague, Amantur Japarov, was there to help us establish an initial contact and settle in. We stopped a number of times in front of small camps of two or three yurts, to no avail. After several visibly unsuccessful conversations, Amantur went toward a camp that was better equipped than the others. There were several yurts, a caravan, military tents, and several cars parked in front. When we arrived, Amantur seemed to have found a more receptive ear. A friendly man invited us to park. We –1–

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soon spied Western trekkers drinking tea around a campfire. We were told that the camp had been freshly inaugurated and was reserved for Western tourists like us who wanted to experience the traditional Kyrgyz way of life. One of the yurts was even adorned with a sign that read “Shepherd’s Life,” the name of a project financed by a Swiss NGO (Helvetas) that was trying to develop sustainable tourism in Kyrgyzstan. After a quick private discussion, we got back into our vehicle, but not before asking the man, who was a bit vexed, to point us in the direction of the village chief’s camp. We were, of course, astonished to discover the presence of such an NGO and the recent development of tourism but also a bit piqued at having been taken for tourists. We finally settled a couple of miles away in Sujunali Monolov’s camp. The man was obviously an important figure. We quickly found out that he was the local representative for the Akhtala district in the Naryn regional assembly and the former chairman of a kolkhoz located farther down the valley. He was not present at the camp. His brother and his wife offered us hospitality while we awaited his return. The Monolovs’ camp included several nuclear families (tutun) and their numerous children who came to spend the summer there. There were indeed a couple of horses around the yurts and a herd of sheep, but breeding livestock seemed to be secondary for the residents. On the other hand, we noticed evidence around the camp of recent festive activities. A big ring of ashes staining the ground and bones scattered about to the dogs’ delight indicated that several animals had recently been sacrificed to prepare a besh barmak, a “traditional” Kyrgyz dish. Monolov eventually arrived one morning driving his official car, a white Volga with red velour seats. Everyone gathered around the car, which was filled with provisions. Over a cup of tea, he confirmed that we had unfortunately missed a major festive event that would have held the utmost interest for us. A few days earlier, the region’s governor, Askar Salymbekov, had come to Song Kol Lake accompanied by the Kyrgyz president, Askar Akayev, and former Russian president Boris Yeltsin. According to Monolov, we could have taken part in a typical Kyrgyz celebration with feasts and equestrian games in honor of a local historical hero, Taylak Baatir, who had become popular again in the past couple of years. The presence of the former Russian president, a longtime friend of the Kyrgyz president, was not insignificant and underlined the strong ties that still existed between the two nations. Boris Yeltsin and Askar Akayev met in Saint Petersburg and then sat together on the Supreme Soviet in Moscow. Yeltsin was active in Askar Akayev’s rise to the head of the Kyrgyz Republic. Beyond the ties linking these two men, a strong relationship still exists today between Russia and Kyrgyzstan.

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Someone Ate All Our Sheep | 3

Relations between the two countries differed from traditional postcolonial situations. For example, the relations between France and her former colonies in West Africa were very different. First of all, independence was endured much more than desired by the Central Asian republics. Among the Kyrgyz, independence gave rise to complex and ambivalent feelings toward Russia. The recent celebration of Kyrgyz heroes such as Taylak Baatir was not a way of thumbing their nose at the former Russian colonizer. It was a way of asserting the country’s role in history and to recall Kyrgyz warriors’ active participation in liberating the people in regional political history. Taylak Baatir did not fight against the Russians; rather he fought at their side against the Khanate of Kokand’s attempts at dominion in the nineteenth century. Today, high mountain pastures (jailoo) are not only places of economic activity. Certain political rituals take place there, asserting the new symbols of national sovereignty. It is also, in a society that is increasingly urban, simply becoming a favorite place for summer retreats, where political ties are also created. Monolov told us that he drove to the pastures intermittently during the summer to rest for the weekend, to get a “breath of fresh air” away from the city, to rediscover “the spirit of Kyrgyz life” (kyrgyzchylyk) but also to entertain friends and family. Family lineage ties (uruh) remain very important, and time has to be devoted to them. Therefore, the pastures are also a place for summer gatherings where social relations are maintained. Though Monolov confirmed that he owned one of the largest herds of sheep on the lake, he immediately specified that herding was not his main occupation. Our numerous questions about the organization of herding quickly annoyed him. After listening to us and making sure that we were neither diplomats nor members of an NGO that could help him in his personal and political endeavors, Monolov strongly advised us to go stay with the Manbetovs, a herder family, for the purposes of our study. We will come across Monolov, an emblematic figure of the country’s politicians, throughout the book. The former kolkhoz chairman exemplifies a new social figure mixing political and economic power. As a local elected official, he remains a civil servant now in charge of the regional forests, but he also now claims to be “in bizness,” the new fashionable catchword. After these initial peregrinations, we ended up settling in Kubanachbek Manbetov’s family camp. The shepherd spends the summer on the lake with his wife, Altinaï, three of his sons, Emil, Melis and Stal, their wives, and their children. They form one of the rare extended families exclusively devoted to horse and sheep breeding that continue to conduct summer transhumance.

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Our early contacts revealed a certain number of changes in Kyrgyzstan. The presence of tourists and developers on the highlands showed that the procedures of hospitality had considerably evolved in this society. The hospitality tradition generally gave the guest (konok) a unique status, which entailed a certain number of rights and duties. This tradition still exists without a doubt; however, a clear distinction is made between two forms of konok: one who is part of the host’s limited social universe and one who enters into the type of social relation involving payment for accommodations in the family home. Kubanachbek’s family history embodies many of the changes over the last two decades. Outside the summer months, the family lived in a village, Togolok Moldo, located lower in the valley at an elevation of nearly eight thousand feet. Ever since the kolkhoz was privatized, the family has bred livestock and organized transhumance, lasting several months in summer, mainly to tend the herds, enabling them to graze on high-quality pastureland. Life in the pastures is punctuated by daily activities made necessary by the harsh mountain setting. It being impossible to gather firewood, collecting dried animal dung or tezek is an essential activity for making fires to keep warm and cook. It occupies the children, who also have to fetch water regularly for the camp by riding horses to a natural spring located on the summits, still covered with snow. Water is needed for making tea and bread and boiling food. Bread with fresh cream and butter made at the camp is often the daily staple. Milking the animals, more particularly the mares, is women’s work, while watching over the herds is generally left to the men. Altinaï brought about five gallons a day of fresh mare’s milk to a private company, Shoro, that had recently opened near the lake and collects mare’s milk to make a very popular fermented drink among the Kyrgyz called koumiss. At first, the daily repetition of these chores and activities in a magical setting seemed anchored in an unchanging world. Yet many things had changed for this shepherd and his family since the fall of the USSR and the closing of the kolkhozes. The yurt, often seen as a symbol of an enduring traditional way of life, actually only reappeared recently. The Manbetovs acquired one in order to spend summers at Song Kol. Work is no longer organized by the collective farm but by the family; herds are now privately owned. Personal choices now guide the way things are organized. With the closing of the kolkhoz, the Manbetovs decided to create a family business devoted to livestock breeding and farming the little arable land they were given to produce forage for their herds and wheat for their domestic use. Kubanachbek used to be a kolkhoz member and participated in a collective economy where everyone had a specific role. He was awarded sev-

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eral medals for his devotion to the system and did not hide a certain form of nostalgia for the days when herding occupied an important place in society. His wife was his assistant. Since 1995 when the kolkhoz closed, the herds have considerably diminished in size. Most of the former kolkhoz members spend the summer in the village due to a lack of means. They are now occupied with subsistence farming (growing cereals and potatoes). Others confronted with unemployment and poverty have chosen to leave the area and seek a better life in urban areas. Like the kolkhoz that closed down, livestock farming was quickly collapsing in Kyrgyzstan. Kubanachbek and Altinaï’s most valuable capital is certainly their family and their numerous children. They have seven sons and two daughters. The latter two both left the family home; one lives in a village near Togolok Moldo, while the other one lives in Bishkek with her husband. Adil, the eldest son, lives in Kant, a town in the north of the country, where he is a taxi driver. Edil has remained in the village. He used to be a tractor operator at the kolkhoz. Since privatization, he has acquired a tractor that he uses for the family farm, and he rents out his services to other peasants. Ernis also lives in the village and helps out on the family farm from time to time. The younger sons, Emil, Melis and Stal,1 and their wives worked on the family farm full time. The forth son, Bakit, at age 30, rarely returns to Togolok Moldo. He has chosen to settle in Bishkek. At first he worked in construction. While he was in charge of buying material for the construction sites at the Taatan bazaar, he met a Chinese man, who is now his associate. Bakit still maintains strong ties with his family and his village. For instance, it was time for him to think about marrying, and he hoped to find a bride who came from his native region. His family had, moreover, been saving money to contribute to a new matrimonial alliance. Despite all these changes in occupations, the Kyrgyz remain associated in the regional imagination with mountain herding in the foothills of the Tian Shan. It is a specific characteristic that distinguishes them from their Kazak neighbors, who are also associated with the social universe of transhumant shepherds, although horizontally in the steppe. To the west and south, other peoples, such as the Uzbek and Tajik, are more willingly associated with the sedentary and agrarian world. These broad naturalizing classifications that make it possible to differentiate spaces and peoples are generally used to depict an unchanging Central Asia. They contribute most of all to leading us astray in regard to the contemporary reality of these societies because Kyrgyz society can no longer be reduced to its shepherds and its nomadic horsemen. Pastoral activities linked to livestock breeding are no longer dominant. The singular relationship between herding, a mountainous environment, and the Kyrgyz population has un-

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dergone drastic upheaval over the past few decades. The way space is occupied is also experiencing considerable change.

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In Search of a Baseline Even though there are political entities today called Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, these societies are not exclusively inhabited by the eponymous peoples. Before Russian colonization, these different populations did not make up isolated groups; rather, they were in contact with one another at a time when they interacted in Central Asian political spaces that were not defined by national criteria. Under Soviet rule, these populations were grouped together to form national administrative republics. The policy of nationalities and the political division of land into national republics in 1936 closely associated an ethnonational group with a territory. Beyond these political-administrative creations, several different nationalities were living at that time in the Kyrgyz Republic and other republics. That is why today, for instance, many Uzbeks live in the south of Kyrgyzstan. Nowadays, these ethnic categories can no longer be reduced to a particular way of life or a specific economic activity. The Kyrgyz can no longer be described according to a catalog of objective defining traits pertaining to language or culture that would refer to a specific way of occupying space and a structural relationship with a type of occupation, such as herding. The population that is called Kyrgyz today now lives in an increasingly complex society in which herding has become one occupation among many. Furthermore, the vicissitudes of history provoked migrations so that at the time of independence the majority of citizens in Soviet Kyrgyzstan were not classified as Kyrgyz by the system of nationalities in effect at the time. There were Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Koreans, and so on. Nevertheless, the traditional activities in relation to sheep and, most of all, horses continue to occupy a choice position in people’s imaginations. This symbolic preeminence has been materialized by the creation of a national ideology around the epic of the great horseman, the Kyrgyz’ legendary ancestor, Manas, who will be discussed further on. It is also expressed in the country’s social life by the prestige associated with horses, which is illustrated in particular during funerals, where eating horsemeat is considered an obligation. It is reflected as well by the current revival of equestrian games such as Kok Boru.2 Nowadays, the Kyrgyz are no longer nomadic, and shepherds have become a minority.

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Looking Back on a Soviet Economy of Intensive Livestock Farming After some time at Song Kol, I had the feeling that I would necessarily be confronted with boredom in such a vast expanse, which seemed, to my eyes, completely untouched by any human intervention. With the passing days, however, I realized that, in fact, there was always something going on: the visit of a neighbor or an acquaintance or the need to perform a certain number of vital activities. Furthermore, with the help of our shepherd, little by little I learned to read the landscapes and distinguish the limits and markers by which the population delimited different places. Through his stories I also learned how to identify vestiges of the Soviet system. Kubanachbek enjoyed sharing his knowledge and describing the organization of livestock farming during the time of the kolkhoz. He talked about a very different Song Kol Lake, where overabundant herds exausted the vegetation. He mentioned the imposing architecture of sheep barns used to shear the animals. In summer, the different kolkhozes from the surrounding valleys brought their livestock there. There was no collective transhumance. Kolkhoz members instead brought their animals in trucks, and shepherds exclusively in charge of tending the herds stayed on the lake while the kolkhoz members assigned to other activities remained in the valley. The former shepherd recalled the industrial and rationalized methods of the Soviet era. The population now avoided those places because the ground was reportedly polluted from the excessive use of chemicals to treat the sheepskins. Only Kubanachbek’s and his son Melis’s indications enabled me to notice the few physical traces of an intensive livestock farming economy. Indeed, it required attentive observation of the landscape to pick out the few scattered, crumbling walls of the sheepfolds that used to dot the lake’s shores. The herds had diminished considerably. The sheep barns had since been completely taken apart and pillaged, mostly in order to sell scrap iron to the Chinese nearby. As this former kolkhoz indicates, the priority for Kyrgyzstan was to raise merino sheep to supply wool to the Soviet textile industry. This activity was at the heart of the republic’s social life. The raising of this exogenous breed of wool-producing sheep was one of the country’s main resources, and a large part of the economy was organized around its local, as well as national, institutions (kolkhoz, sovkhoz, wool mills, etc.). On the local level, the kolkhoz occupied a central role. It was not only the institution that organized production in a given territory, but it also structured power relations and determined the access to external as well as internal resources. The livestock breeding kolkhozes of the Naryn valley

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have since closed their gates, causing the bankruptcy of the textile mill in the city of Tokmok. Soviet policy led to an increased specialization in merino sheep breeding while marginalizing horse husbandry. The equally traditional occupations of trade and hunting also declined. The First of May kolkhoz (Prvi Maj), where Kubanachbek worked his whole life, was similar to the other numerous livestock breeding kolkhozes in Kyrgyzstan. It was the result of a process of demographic concentration and sedentarization of the nomadic population, organized by the Soviet government after the Second World War. Kubanachbek’s father, Manbet, actively participated in sedentarization and collectivization. Until well into the twentieth century, the Kyrgyz in this valley practiced transhumance (Jacquesson 2011), leading them to live in a delimited space in the winter (kishtoo), generally located in the foothills of mountains not far from water resources (streams, rivers, and arable land). They did not live in dense groups. Several groups of yurts (ayil) occupied a space defined according to a tribe’s (uruu) use of land. In summer these groups moved higher into the mountains so the herds could graze around Song Kol Lake and in other pastures, thus bringing the people into contact with other communities. This social system (Abramzon 1960, guaranteeing rights according to affiliations with political and economic entities led by chiefs (manap), was gradually disappearing. Consequently, in the Soviet system, access to resources was conditioned by a status that was no longer based on lineage but on affiliation with a social institution. Belonging to a kolkhoz determined access to land, work, education, and even the health system. The kolkhoz thus represented a fait social total (Mauss, 1973) because it gave access to resources and other key social spaces in Soviet Kyrgyz society. Before the creation of the kolkhozes, which only took shape in the first half of the 1950s, the Kyrgyz population in the Naryn valley lived in an area where different groups lived together but were not gathered according to the model of a village. In the early 1930s, the Soviet government’s first step was to create work associations (toz),3 which often continued to group members of the same lineage together. In the second phase, these toz were grouped together into one single entity: the kolkhoz. The third phase consisted in regrouping small kolkhozes to create larger population and production units. The creation of Prvi Maj kolkhoz was not a copy of a traditional Kyrgyz identity system but a regrouping of individuals from various origins who had no choice but to cooperate in organizing the economy. The kolkhoz, through its modernization, asserted itself over the population as the center of economic activity. Housing and schooling helped to fashion a new way of life in the kolkhoz-village.

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Electrification, the mechanization of agriculture, economic specialization, and widespread building of permanent houses gradually persuaded the Kyrgyz to become sedentary. Some left to further their education in the capital’s training institutions. Kolkhozes were built on the sites of winter camps, bringing together a new population mix that created new forms of solidarity. The modification of the use of space and the organization of work and housing logically modified relationships to authority and power within the new social unit. Furthermore, the government developed new resources (agriculture, schools, universities, mines, factories, etc.) making the population’s occupations more complex and also modifying the population distribution—on a local level with kolkhozes and on a national level with the creation of administrative centers in cities such as Naryn and Bishkek. Given the importance of livestock breeding in this society, this economic activity had a major role in structuring access to power on a local as well as on a national level. Control over this resource was a factor in the organization of power relations. Up until the closing of the kolkhoz, Manbetov was in charge of the collective herd of horses (tabun) under Monolov’s orders, in a division of labor that was highly sectored.4 Kubanachbek continued his breeding activities in a radically different context. The collective farm no longer existed; the herds and the land were divided up and privatized in a general context where livestock breeding had become one occupation among others in Kyrgyz rural life.

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From Kolkhoz to Village Early one morning, Emil Manbetov drove us to the village in his old Lada Niva. After several hours of driving, we came to the location of the former Prvi Maj kolkhoz. The term ayil5 is now preferred to kolkhoz, and, after independence, this particular one was rebaptized “Togolok Moldo” after a local bard. We crisscrossed the mountain, going near other grazing pastures in the medium mountains (orto jailoo), which were characterized by the presence of conifers. We then came to a highland where there were planted fields as far as the eye could see, yellowed by the sun and filled with villagers busy harvesting. As we went by, I was surprised to see certain people working with tools from another age (pitchforks, animal-drawn plows) while others were equipped with combine harvesters and tractors. We went by the cemetery, obliging Emil to say a prayer (omin) as a sign of respect for his ancestors; then, in the distance, we saw small herds, tended by children, looking for shade under the few trees bordering the pastures. The car slowed down in front of a newly erected equestrian statue. Emil

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told us that it was a statue of Taylak Baatir, the famous local hero recently honored by the Kyrgyz president on Song Kol Lake. We finally spotted the village, an oasis of poplar trees nestled between a barren mountain piedmont and the Naryn River. We sometimes spied groups of bicycles and donkeys on the sides of the road, waiting for their owners. In the suffocating heat, young boys swam in the irrigation canals crisscrossing the parcels, allowing themselves a couple of hours’ respite before heading back to the fields. We entered the village on one of two main roads that ran through it. Emil slowed down to give us our first guided tour. At the entrance to the village, we came face to face with a big building that was the hospital and maternity ward. The main avenue was a dirt road lined with reddish-orange wooden fences, behind which we caught glimpses of low white houses with corrugated metal roofs. The houses were set in small, well-kept gardens. These little kitchen gardens had taken on great importance because they provided self-subsistence, producing potatoes, carrots, apples, and raspberries. In the village center, imposing public buildings were recognizable by their color, the telltale white and sky-blue buildings found all over the ex-USSR. The school, with its hard-packed dirt playground and its gymnasium, occupied an important place. Over seven hundred students were enrolled in the school. Across the way, a statue of Lenin stood in an unkempt square; there was also a neglected monument for those who died in the Second World War and in the Soviet War in Afghanistan. Not far from there, the administrative seat of the kolkhoz had become the administrative center for the new local authorities (ayil okmoti). The building stood in the middle of the public garden, which was choked with weeds. The importance of all of these buildings, architectural traces of the secular Soviet world, was dwarfed by a more recent building that was practically adjacent, the mosque,6 with its imposing minaret built right in the middle of the public garden. Across from the mosque, the former kolkhoz store had been turned into a private grocery store. Flour, oil, rice, pasta, and canned goods imported from China could be bought there, but also American cigarettes, Mars bars and other candy bars, Coca-Cola, and, most of all, vodka. Another small store sold a variety of foodstuffs, but also DVDs of American war and karate films that were very popular with the young Kyrgyz. A little farther away, an old warehouse had been reconverted. The lighted sign awkwardly nailed above the door indicated that it was now a restaurant and bar where one could drink sodas, beer, and vodka. After this first short tour, we settled into the Manbetov family house, where two of Kubanachbek’s sons had stayed in order to take care of the family’s several acres of farmland and make hay for the winter. I decided

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to make a quick trip to meet the local administration chief (ayil okmotu), Zamir Kachkanbaev. He greeted me with a mixture of surprise and curiosity at the idea of speaking to a foreigner. For several days, he would be my guide and explain everything to me. He suggested we leave his rundown office and invited me to get in his old green jigouli so he could show me around the village. He immediately brought my attention to the fate of the former kolkhoz buildings. Among the ruins, he gave me a straightforward presentation of the situation: “Here, we were one of the best livestock breeding kolkhozes; we provided one of the best wools, and since the fall of the USSR and privatization it has been a disaster. The kolkhoz livestock went from seventy thousand to six thousand head in just a few years.” Togolok Moldo’s situation illustrated the economic crisis the country had been experiencing overall since 1991. According to national statistics, livestock had been decimated, going from twelve million head at the end of the 1980s to two to three million in 2008, no longer occupying such a dominant role in the Kyrgyz economy. Over several days, various discussions with the villagers invariably led to the description of a devastating period—from independence to privatization (1990 to 1995). It was characterized by widespread plunder of existing resources. Certain former kolkhoz members described it as a strange period when, little by little, resources disappeared. They mentioned lots of waste and remembered ostentatious celebrations during which several sheep and horses were sacrificed and eaten. Others spoke of small operators taking advantage of the chaos to dismantle collective infrastructures (sheep barns, garages, warehouses, storehouses, farming implements, etc.) and tools of production (tractors, trucks, trailers, etc.) that they then sold as scrap to neighboring China. Still others denounced a small group of people that apparently took advantage of privatization to claim the best farmland and the collective farm’s most modern tools and implements for themselves. Zamir explained to me that farming had taken on greater importance now; most men and women worked in the fields to ensure a near self-subsistence production. Forage for the animals was needed, as well as wheat for making bread. The Manbetov family embodied the spread of small patriarchal family businesses. My first impressions of Togolok Moldo were echoed in a conversation I had much later with the former first secretary of the Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Turdakun Usubaliyev. The ninety-two-year-old man lived in the suburbs of the Kyrgyz capital in the presidential residence reserved for political eminences of the regime. He reigned over the former Soviet Republic for several decades. Our conversation started with a long litany of figures and statistics similar to those of Zamir:

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Kyrgyzstan was a little paradise. We completed the electrification of the whole country; all of the children were schooled; we built thousands of miles of roads and dozens of bridges. Water was our main resource and we built dozens of dams and hydroelectric power stations. There was an industrial network with dozens of factories. The torpedo plant had 8,500 employees and the Lenin factory had 20,000 workers; there were cotton mills in Osh. We worked with the biggest textile complexes in the USSR, in particular with the town of Ivanovo, and we produced 38,000 tons of wool. We were one of the best wool producers with more than ten million head of sheep. … We recently fell to under two million head; all I have just listed for you, sir, well, all of our riches have disappeared. Young man, if you want to write a book about our country you will have to explain where this has all gone. … What happened to all our factories, what happened to all our sheep?

On his own level, Zamir gave me just about the same speech, adding an extra dimension, asking, “What happened to all our kolkhoz members?” emphasizing the scale of rural exodus.

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The Anthropologist in the Face of Social Change This situation is relatively unsettling for an anthropologist, who can be tempted to describe a social world where the relationship between humans and their environment is relatively stable. In this case, I was confronted with major upheavals. Anthropologists can no longer rely on the organization of a world structured by regularity. Reinhardt Koselleck (2004), who conceptualized historical change, perhaps provides one key to understanding by simply defining change as something that is no longer repeated. It can be seen here through the villagers’ daily activities that a whole set of activities are no longer repeated. People no longer take care of the statue of Lenin; they take care of the mosque. People no longer go to the kolkhoz; they take care of their family’s land. They no longer expect the kolkhoz to provide certain services; they rely on help from their families. People no longer expect the kolkhoz to take care of their needs; they must earn money on their own to buy goods, to be able to buy a car or a television. An anthropologist must therefore describe the activities that are no longer repeated and describe others that are emerging.

Some Local Authority Figures During my first stays in the Naryn valley, the villagers from Togolok Moldo constantly repeated how crucially important the period of privatization in the 1990s was. This period corresponded to the implementation

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of the shock therapy advocated by international institutions. The state needed to disengage massively from the economic sphere and launch a political process of democratization, which, in particular, implied electing local authorities. The kolkhoz was not the object of a sale, resulting in the exclusive appropriation by a single person as occurred elsewhere. In the region of Togolok Moldo, the inhabitants were hostile to the dismantling of the kolkhozes.7 Temporary organizations (ayil komiteti) were in charge of reorganizing the kolkhozes. The organizations were chaired by the kolkhoz chairmen who were to oversee their liquidation. The alternatives available to them were to maintain a collective structure in the form of a cooperative or to privatize by dividing everything up among the kolkhoz members. Like the majority of kolkhozes, Togolok Moldo opted for liquidation. Dismantling started with dividing up the land resources among the people born within the kolkhoz. This principle of birthright entitled people to a share of land (ulush)8 equaling a little over an acre. This method of division favored a family concentration of land. The division of renewable resources such as livestock was determined according to the number of years spent working (staz) in the kolkhoz.9 The livestock was distributed to the people, who, little by little, replaced the exogenous wool-producing sheep with a local race (Kyrgyz koi) that was better adapted to the natural environment and to local meat consumption. A few key resources were not privatized and remained under state control (arable land) or under local authority control (pastureland) through the intermediary of a state fund (gosfond) that granted land leases to the new peasants. Kolkhoz members criticized the local authorities for waiting until most of the livestock were seriously decreased before organizing the distribution of the herd.10 They also accused the former leaders of having taken advantage of their positions to satisfy their personal interests by accumulating capital, allowing them to buy certain strategic means of production (warehouses, sheepfolds, mills, combine harvesters) during the privatization process. In a situation of penury (a shortage of fuel and means of transportation), the area of the kolkhoz shrank and the more distant pastures were abandoned. The heated sheep barns, a vestige of Soviet folly, quickly fell into disuse due to maintenance costs.11 The technical equipment was not privatized until 2000, and ownership was partly transferred to the ayil okmotu, who organized a rental system before finally selling it off. The land privatization process was, therefore, not a complete liberalization of private property. It could even be said that the Kyrgyz government strongly resisted international injunctions. Consequently, the new forms of social distinction are essentially unlinked to land ownership and

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flow more from the development of new activities that are unrelated to either land or livestock. Privatization has altered the relations of interdependence between individuals on a local level and marked the end of the predominance of the kolkhoz chairman.

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The Former Kolkhoz Chairman: The Bashkarma Sujunali Monolov, the former kolkhoz chairman, nevertheless remains one of the central power figures. He no longer occupies an official position in the village but his mark is to be found everywhere. The villagers voluntarily speak of him as the true village chief. He gave up his position as kolkhoz chairman in 1996 when the kolkhoz was liquidated and remained a civil servant by being named regional forest manager. He sits on the regional assembly as the elected representative for the Akhtala district and therefore occupies important political and administrative roles locally. His civil servant status gives him control over a key resource, forest exploitation. Lumber for construction has become a valuable resource.12 Monolov has considerable social capital within the Kyrgyz regional administration. He continues to live in the village and has even become the largest private farmer by the size of his farm. A villager explained, “Even if he’s not here, he is never far away. He entrusted his farm to his brothers. During privatization, he took a number of things from the kolkhoz and now he rents out farm equipment and the use of his mill. Many of us are dependent on him.” Monolov owns two mills, two combine harvesters, tractors, trucks, sheepfolds, and also sells fuel. Members of his family manage the farm, and many ex-kolkhoz members work for him. This situation has allowed him to create social relations of dependence with the villagers. Even if he is physically absent from everyday life in the village, his presence is unavoidable.

The New Official Local Authority: The Ayil Okmotu The second figure in the village is the local administration chief, the ayil okmotu. Zamir was appointed to the position of ayil okmotu by the district administration (Rayon) after privatization. His predecessor, who had also been kolkhoz chairman for a time, has taken advantage of his position to take over the state store, which has since become the main private grocery store. The local authorities basically inherited nothing but debt. However, they have played a decisive role in attributing long-term land leases that are dependent on the gosfond. Their importance has evolved somewhat after the dismantling of the kolkhoz. In a region like Naryn,13 the village council chairman has become a central figure in local society. The admin-

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istration thus nominated Zamir as representative in charge of the local implementation of the new legislative measures regarding the state’s disengagement from the economic sector. Little by little, he has replaced the kolkhoz chairman, the bashkarma, though without having as much economic power as the latter. Zamir is a native of the village but never worked in the kolkhoz. After studying agronomy in Bishkek, he worked in Baetov as an agricultural sector manager and held an office in the Komsomol. After independence, he was no longer a member of the party, which had fallen into decay, but he took advantage of his position within the politico-administrative machine to obtain attractive bank loans and, in 1993, bought a fertilizer plant. His private company failed quickly. The Akim thus offered him the position as council chairman in Togolok Moldo. His wife, a doctor, became the director of the village hospital and maternity ward. He has considerable capital in administrative resources14 at his disposal, mainly stemming from the former system, which allowed him to reorient his career despite his business failure. However, Zamir cannot depend on a large family capital to concentrate enough land. He is limited to his activities as village chief, knowing all the while that he lacks economic power. His role as ayil okmotu consists in managing the village’s debt, levying taxes, controlling the gosfond land leases, overseeing the distribution of water, organizing military conscription, managing the registry office, and taking care of social issues (retirement, aid for large families, disability pensions) but also in paying school, postal, and hospital employees. He represents the central government on the local level and therefore acts as an important intermediary role between the population and the state for a whole array of services. His role is founded on a dual legitimacy: local because the central government systematically appointed individuals who were from the village they are supposed to administrate, and external because of his experience and his relations with the administration.

The “Biznessman”: Economic Power Another social figure recently emerged in the village. Although Zamir embodied the continuity of power, his authority was contested, not by political or administrative authorities but from within the village. Some of the inhabitants condemned his passivity. Talapai Iskenderov was one of the main detractors. In his forties, slim and lean, he immediately contrasts with Monolov and Zamir’s easygoing attitudes. He told me right off that he was a busy man because he was in business. This notion of “business” had a very vast and vague meaning depending on whom I talked to. Talapai explains, “‘Business means that I make deals, I buy and sell things—

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anything. So I travel a lot. … I don’t sit around like the village chief who spends all day twiddling his thumbs! The world has changed; the age of parasites is over. You can’t expect everything from the government.” Talapai immediately posed as the opponent of Monolov’s and Zamir’s local power. He wanted to embody a new type of entrepreneur who is different from the Soviet era. During the time of the Soviet Union, Talapai was a civil servant in the justice ministry. After the law breaking up the kolkhozes passed, he took his share of land where he was born in Togolok Moldo and grouped it with the shares of his father, his wife, and his children into seven and a half acres. He decided to return to his native village and settle there as a farmer. He drew on the strength of his family (father, brothers, and brothers-in-law) to start a new career. During privatization, his personal capital allowed him to start a small business with material bought mostly from the kolkhoz. He quickly found himself in conflict with the ayil okmotu and the kolkhoz chairman, who also aimed to appropriate the village resources. He wanted to obtain a little over sixty acres of irrigated land, and the local authorities refused. He put his legal knowledge to use and won his claim, securing a lease for the irrigated land from the gosfond. His financial success is fairly visible in the village and came from multiple business activities that he developed alongside his farming activity. It is always busy around his house, which boasts a mill and a sawmill, both greatly coveted by the villagers. When I arrive, several workers are watching their new boss perched on top of a stack of hay shouting into his mobile phone. He jumps down: “It’s the only place I can get any mobile phone reception. It’s not good for business!” His financial success has made him eager to gain political influence and to chase the “Soviets” from city hall once and for all. He means Zamir, of course, but he also mentions Monolov’s lurking presence and declares, “What a coincidence, [Monolov] got his hands on the best land, he has the largest herd, he also got the mill, and still, that’s not enough for him. He became regional forest manager. I can tell you that he really takes advantage of this situation because lumber has become one of the most valuable construction materials here. He helps himself to local timber for his personal gain at the expense of the people.” Talapai explained that he had bought a sawmill and a mill to put them, so he said, at the people’s disposal: “People come to me to cut wood or to use the mill and all that for almost nothing. Everything is at the people’s disposal. They only have to pay a few kopeks.” Talapai rejects forms of identification based on lineage, considering this “a thing of the past.” He denounces the way certain people used it politically, trying to push him aside because he is not Sayak.15 He says, “I am Munduz, so more from the south, but that doesn’t mean anything to me.” Talapai has gone beyond the local area for his business and refers to the

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relations he has with the Kyrgyz state machinery and the regional governor’s brother. On the wall of Talapai’s living room hangs a picture of him next to the Salymbekov brothers, the owners of the Dordoy Bazaar. He talked to me with feeling about his personal relationship with the governor’s brother, who was recently assassinated: “It was a hard blow for me because we were friends and we did business together. He was supposed to be my son’s godfather.” Talapai is above all a merchant who travels often to Bishkek but also to Turkey and China. Mobility has become an important element characterizing social status in a society where highway robbery was an obstacle to the development of trade. According to Talapai, his business, which started out as a family business, now has more than twenty workers on payroll. His farm is a permanent hive of activities that go far beyond regular farming. Talapai runs his business with an iron fist and is paternalistic toward his workers, providing them with protection and advantages (access to certain consumer goods, housing, bonuses, etc.). In just a few years, Talapai has become one of the main suppliers of labor. The emergence of this type of small, versatile businessman is a common feature in post-Soviet Kyrgyz society and also illustrates an emerging form of social relations. The boss heads a business that is, in a way, an economic territory. Employees owe allegiance to the new boss’s venture beyond the economic aspect. It is a form of group belonging characterized by relations of clientelism mixing family, economic, and political ties. The emergence of this type of group foreshadowed new political relations. In Togolok Moldo, Talapai was certainly eager to fight it out with his opponents on the political stage. He had been waiting impatiently for the chance to run in the next local election because the ayil okmotu would no longer be appointed but elected. The village awaited the local elections with a certain apprehension as tension and social distinctions grew increasingly perceptible.

The Shepherd: A Prestigious but Powerless Figure Kubanachbek Manbetov did not hide his nostalgia for an era when there was only one village chief and the kolkhoz was more unified. This shepherd exemplifies a figure of prestige that fit in with the continuation of Soviet order as well as with the return of a renewed family tradition. He worked in the kolkhoz his whole life and did not speak Russian like the other authority figures discussed above. The shepherd (chaban) embodied a role model to follow during the Soviet era. Kubanachbek’s photo was hanging on a bulletin board celebrating certain people from the village who had been decorated several times. A street had recently been named

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after his father, and Kubanachbek incarnates a continuation of current national ideology centered on Kyrgyzness (Kyrgyzchylyk). Local officials rely on figures like Kubanachbek embodying authority and respect for a timeless Kyrgyz social order. This gives him a solid social position with a hint of prestige but with no power. He typifies one of the fairly widespread ways of adapting to the new social and economic situation. He perpetuates an economic model based on livestock breeding without going beyond subsistence production. Kubanachbek’s principal wealth is his herd, which is growing little by little but could be decimated at any moment by disease. He owns about sixty sheep, a few goats and cows, but most of all mares to produce milk. His authoritarianism has prevented his sons from imagining other strategies for developing the family farm differently. The specialization of labor in the kolkhozes and the development of education had led to autonomization and the diversification of occupations within family units. The current process tends to promote new logics of domination within the family. However, Kubanachbek’s son Emil spends the winter in the capital doing construction work. In high mountainous areas where it is particularly cold, farming activities slow down and many villagers go down to Bishkek to look for work. Emil explained to me that Joldosh, his adoptive brother, had found work for him. Emil’s father had solved the problem of a lack of relations outside the village by creating fictitious relations of kinship. During the summer, many children native to the region living in Bishkek come to the lake for vacation. Joldosh was born in the neighboring village of Kurtka before leaving for Bishkek and then Moscow to study. He then worked in Baetov and later for the prestigious state-run gold-mining company in Kazarman. When I met him, he held a managerial post at Kirgiz Altin16 in the Kyrgyz capital. Joldosh had lost his parents, he had no brothers, and his two sisters lived in the village. He no longer had any family capital and was looking for strong local ties. This also corresponded to a need to return to his roots. Joldosh explained to me how it was necessary for him to create this relationship for his children so they could spend summers living like true Kyrgyz. In a society where the importance of local attachment is essential, Joldosh was also trying to legitimately establish his local roots. By creating this fictitious kinship, the people involved were using a cultural resource to overcome a reciprocal social deficit that was indispensable for being assimilated in Kyrgyz society today.

The Moldo, or the Affirmation of Religious Authority Power does not only control material life. In a context of de-Sovietization, Islam occupies a new position. Religion plays a very marginal role in daily

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life in Togolok Moldo. The best example is perhaps the Manbetovs’ behavior. Kubanchbek called himself a Muslim but did not pray daily. During my many stays, certain rituals had obvious importance. On my arrival, for example, he said a short prayer before sacrificing a sheep. Kubanachbek claimed to be strongly attached to Islam, but his knowledge remained very rudimentary. He did not drink vodka, unlike many villagers, but offered koumiss ritually. He drank probably more than a quart a day during the summer. In a context of reinterpreting the precepts of Islam, new preachers condemn drinking this fermented alcoholic beverage, which is thus considered forbidden for Muslims to consume. Certain practices are therefore affected by current changes that transform relationships to what is sacred according to the development of a new Muslim mindset purged of local traditional beliefs. Drinking koumiss, however, is strongly anchored in social habits and is resisting these new interpretations. Nevertheless, the new position Islam occupies in society is reflected by the mosque built in the center of the village in 1993. Its location in the former public garden, a secular space, is the expression of a radical change in the role given to religion in public life. It would be difficult for someone to claim that they were not Muslim or were atheist. The building of mosques was the most visible and spectacular phenomenon in the country; every village has built its own mosque since the declaration of independence, thanks to community action (ashar) and the generosity of many Saudi Arabian foundations.17 I raised the question of religion several times while speaking to people in the village, and their answers were often contradictory. Islam is important to them on special occasions in their lives but does not really dictate their everyday behavior. Others described the moldo (mullah) to me as a reformed alcoholic with no authority whatsoever in the village. So I decided to meet him. Koshkonbai welcomed me into his humble home. An old broken-down bus filled with chickens was parked in the yard. The man wore a short beard and a kalpak. The decoration of his home was different from other houses. There were several posters, including one of Mecca, suras hanging on the wall, Islamic calendars, and bookshelves with some books in Arabic. Koshkonbai has several children. Two of his sons are named Moldobek (little mullah) and Mohammed Ali (after the boxer who converted to Islam), and one of his daughters is called Medina (after the Muslim holy city). The choice of names reveals traces of a new influence and the Arabization of the local language. Following this same logic, the mullah often uses the expression “God willing,” preferring the Arabic Insha’Allah over the standard Kyrgyz expression Kuday buyursa. During the Soviet era, Koshkonbai was a driver. He found religion while he was at the hospital in Bishkek undergoing alcohol rehabilitation. Later,

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he returned to the village, where an old man who was the acting mullah taught him how to read Arabic in a year. He confided, “I began to feel light and to pray, and my mentor progressively left me his position in the village. Since independence, people have come back to the mosque little by little, and there are more and more villagers at Friday prayers.” Koshkonbai set about contacting Arab patrons to build a new mosque. Saudi Arabia and certain Emirates provided enormous financing for the construction of mosques through their religious foundations (Rabita), which are very active in the region. The mullah told me, “We need another mosque so we can welcome everyone, women too, and we need heating and a room for ablutions in winter.” He, too, was looking for connections to an outside resource to confront the new social reality and to earn social authority. However, he had no political aspirations and did not want to contest the local authorities’ power. Togolok Moldo is part of a region in the north of the country where Islam remains a religious activity that does not enter the political arena, unlike in the south where there are attempts to politicize Islam. The reference to Islam, moreover, is often an important way to differentiate people within Kyrgyz society. It is sometimes used to condemn the excesses of others— juzhanin,18 for example, are too Islamic. In the south, Islam is used to condemn the excesses of the Uzbeks, who are considered Islamists. New figures, Monolov’s younger brother, for example, claimed to dispute the mullah’s religious monopoly and openly proclaimed their ambitions to gain political power. Furthermore, the village had recently experienced a new phenomenon: recurrent visits from proselytizing pilgrims. One day, a villager invited me to come to the mosque: “Come, there are pilgrims who will be at the mosque. They wear Arab and Pakistani clothes and all that.” The young pilgrims agreed to meet me. Their discourse was very different from the Muslims I had met before in Central Asia. They showed no wariness and explained their devotion to Islam. For several weeks, these young urban men were sent on the roads to re-Islamicize the country. Their leader told me, “We are Dawadchillar; (missionaries) we go to villages to talk and to explain the beneficial role of Islam; we try to bring young people with us at least to the next village so they understand our approach and are open to something other than what they have heard in their own village. Some continue the journey with us.” Their presence fascinated some young people in the village, while others wanted nothing to do with them. Melis told me, “I don’t like them because they come here to tell us what to do, they tell you what is good and bad, what is Muslim and what’s not. For the most part, they are city people who want to explain tradition to us.”

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The revival of Islam fits into a vast movement of re-Islamization in the region but also into an international context of unprecedented tensions, particularly after 11 September 2001. Kyrgyzstan has since become the focus of international attention, along with neighboring Afghanistan. The kidnapping of Japanese tourists in 2002, allegedly by Islamist groups in the south of the country (in the Batken region), contributed to creating an international image of a potential Islamist hotbed. Islam has thus become an immaterial resource of growing power but also of financial means through local fundraising (zakat) and especially through connections made to the outside world to tap into money from globalized Islam. No one could claim to have power over Islam, and heightened competition exists among several religious figures to embody “true Islam.” This situation has also increased conflict within villages. In spite of Islam’s supremacy, other types of beliefs also coexist. Many villagers visit their koz atchik (seer) for various misfortunes (physical and personnal).19

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The Rise of NGOs and the Development of Private Enterprise Lastly, the emergence of another relatively recent social figure on the local scene must be mentioned. In the village of Togolok Moldo, the presence of NGOs was still fairly discreet in 2001. The process of NGOs taking root in the society began with the privatization of water use. In each Kyrgyz village, an association of water users was supposed to take over from the state to distribute water to farmers. Like everywhere else in the country, the Kolmo association functioned following a market model where users had to pay the Murab20 to have access to water to irrigate their land. The Murab talked to me while flipping through a small handbook entitled Managing Water Resources: “We received a grant to create this association, and I went to a training seminar with David from California, who came to explain to us how we should organize things.” The Murab received training through an American cooperation program (USAID) run by an NGO, Chemonix. The association had also responded to a World Bank program to restore the small dam on the stream that supplied water for the fields in the valley. The Murab described the situation in the village with a touch of humor: “The system used to be very centralized; now I’m in charge of water in the village, but Washington decides! [Laughs] Because, without aid, how could we build and maintain infrastructures?” The Murab had become particularly important in the village since farming had taken on a greater role. His official vehicle, a Lada Niva, which

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came as part of the aid granted by the World Bank, attested to his new status. He explained, “I try not to act like an apparatchik, and people respect me.” He conveys a new ideology encouraging individual initiative and responsibility in contrast with bureaucratic action, which was necessarily parasitical. His office, which he was rarely in, was near the mayor’s. A computer with a USAID sticker sat conspicuously on his desk. The new object, symbolizing change, was still wrapped in plastic, and the Murab preferred to use his old accounting notebooks and his abacus. Zamir, the chief of the village, for his part complained of a situation where the local authorities did not have the means to maintain collective infrastructures and confided, “At the town hall, I inherited debt, and we don’t have any NGOs helping us. Frankly, it is becoming a problem because I don’t have the necessary budget to do things because all the money goes through the hands of the NGOs. They don’t trust us, yet I’m the one who knows everything that needs to be done here. Look at the Murab who has a computer even if he doesn’t know how to use it … and a car … and I don’t have anything, just a secretary with her old typewriter.” I decided to go to the neighboring village, Kurtka, to meet the people in charge of the local NGO Shepherd’s Life, working to develop tourism around the lake. I arrived in front of a large house bustling with activity and people. A young boy guided me to a courtyard, where women were sitting weaving rugs. Narguiza, the owner of the house, was giving instructions. She stopped to explain to me that she had created her association in 1995 with help from the Swiss NGO Helvetas: “We had several types of activities, and I took many training courses for women’s activities. First there was the ‘vegetable’ activity, where Helvetas taught us to develop small private productions and to draw up a business plan. Then they helped us develop cheese production, but that didn’t work very well. Next we developed local crafts by making traditional rugs (Shardak) or kalpaks that we sold through an NGO’s commercial network based in Kochkor.” This group of women, called Umut, was financially successful to a certain extent. Narguiza repeated the arguments given in the Helvetas brochure showing the importance of developing activities for Kyrgyz women. This group of twelve women gathered at her home to make traditional objects. They received a microloan for developing arts and crafts. Umut was part of the Altyn Kol NGO network based in Kochkor, which was handling marketing and distribution of the objects they made. During our first trip to Song Kol Lake, it was Narguiza and her husband’s tourist camp we had come across. They started their Shepherd’s Life tourism activity in 2000, in the framework of this network organized by Helvetas. She explained, “I have six yurts on the lake, and we have more and more tourists, especially

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Europeans. We work with other NGOs who organize a complete circuit for Western tourists who want to go trekking.” Narguiza talked about activities uniting women in an egalitarian manner, but I noticed that she was the only one talking and there was clearly a hierarchy among the different actors. Her house was not merely a place to get together; it was truly the territory of a new female Kyrgyz entrepreneur. She put forth the women’s activities, which were one of the Swiss NGO’s main priorities. However, although she talked openly about the idea of an egalitarian group of women, her house was above all the place of a family business. The couple ran their multiple businesses together in close collaboration. Her husband was omnipresent in the women’s business. He too had converted to the new market economy. He was in the midst of supervising the unloading of water conveyance pipes that would be used by his private company in the village when he joined our conversation, taking over from his wife to explain the way he managed their new activities. His wife’s role was emphasized in the relations they had with the Swiss NGO, but he felt just as involved in her activities. He was particularly proud of the tourism development partnership with Helvetas and invited me to accompany him to the pastures to see how the camp had evolved. So I was off to the pastures again to observe the development of tourism. When we arrived, a man with a long mustache and a woman in her fifties came out of a yurt when they heard our car arriving. As soon as the couple saw me parking my vehicle, they quickly ducked back into the yurt and came back out a few minutes later dressed up in traditional Kyrgyz garb. In light of the comical situation, Narguiza’s husband explained that the tourists needed to have the impression that they were living with and as Kyrgyz shepherds. They then showed me the setup inside the yurts, which had been adapted to a certain level of Western comfort. On a low table, there was a menu in English proposing traditional Kyrgyz dishes. In collaboration with the Swiss NGO, everything had been made to fit Western norms and standards to ensure service corresponding to Western travelers’ criteria. We sat down around the table and continued our discussion over a good meal. After dinner, I went outside to smoke a cigarette. The mustached man taking care of the camp was visibly pleased to find a fellow smoker and came to smoke with me. As we smoked together, he took a bottle of vodka out of his Chapan (long coat) and offered to share it with me. He then started to question me in Russian, thrilled to be able to talk directly to a Westerner. He asked me to explain certain things that he could not understand about European tourists. He said, “You know, you people are strange! Sometimes I don’t understand what you come looking for here. For example, we have a generator, but a Swiss asked me not to

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use it because it wasn’t traditional. So I can’t really let it be seen because the tourists want to live like it was in the past—to live in the wild. … You’ll see that if you stay here a couple of days with me, you’ll be happy to have a generator; it’s freezing here, and it’s nice having electricity!” I jumped at the occasion to ask him why he had gotten dressed up when we arrived and he said, “That’s the way it is; I didn’t write the script. I just follow the procedure for welcoming tourists. … And when I saw your blond head I thought you were another one of those Germans or Frenchmen who come here to go walking! When they arrive, we have to greet them in traditional costumes.” “Don’t you find that a little ridiculous?” I asked him. “I do, but I just do what I’m told. I earn good money and everyone is happy. Want some more vodka?” These attitudes were not limited to putting on a show for tourists but also had implications on the perception individuals had of their own identity. Through these new contacts with tourists, certain tour guides changed the way they spoke about their identity (Pabion 2010).

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Logics of Power: Appropriation, Plunder, and Capture of Resources This local panorama makes it possible to draw up an initial inventory of the resources mobilized in Kyrgyz social life. In the Soviet system, most of the resources were inalienable. It was through a position in state institutions that certain individuals were granted positions of power. The chairman of a kolkhoz, the manager of a factory, warehouse, or store, temporarily appropriated the use of resources under their control. They had to respect the obligations of the State Planification, but they had room to maneuver and to dabble in various activities that were illegal but that everyone knew about. It was in these interstices that the social relations that made Soviet society function were developed. Positions of power were precarious in this system and could be revoked at any time. The same logics of appropriation continued within state institutions in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. On the local level, certain sectors remained under state control. The role of Monolov, the former kolkhoz chairman, was exemplary in illustrating this socially internalized appropriation logic. By becoming forest manager, his position entailed duties toward the state, but it also granted a certain number of implicit rights, allowing him to exploit this resource for his personal use. He could recruit staff and redistribute or give access to this resource. Resources were subject to plunder before they were privatized. The so-called transition phase allowed indi-

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viduals to accumulate capital within public institutions so that, when the time came, they could buy privatized companies. On the national level, former company chairmen were thus able to buy the means of production (cement works, factories, etc.) in the form of shares. Others received mining permits (in particular for coal). On the local level, different forms of plunder led to people getting rich quickly. In Togolok Moldo, nonrenewable resources, such as the means of production, were dismantled, then sold in China. Renewable resources, such as herds, went mainly to individuals who could reinvest their capital in new activities, such as commerce. This logic of plunder was decisive in preparing the following steps: privatization and the appropriation of resources. In the mid-1990s, most of the resources were thus privatized at the local level. A whole set of flows reorganized social life, and material and immaterial resources circulated between Kyrgyzstan and the rest of the world. Movable and immovable property thus became alienable resources. It was an unprecedented phenomenon given its scope, and it took place in a society in which few resources could be mobilized. It was then, essentially, that the logics of capturing external resources developed, such as the various commercial activities related to importing goods from Russia, China, and Turkey. Locally, the most visible aspect was the development of little shops sprouting up in villages everywhere. The liberalization process did not only entail the privatization of local resources. Certain forms of activity were related to ties formed outside the country. Everyone was trying to get a finger in the transnational pie. Resources, which had become decisive elements in the reorganization of social hierarchy, were up for grabs. On the local level, people attempted to tap into resources that had suddenly become available. The moldo goes looking for Saudi Arabian support to build his mosque, the Murab appeals to USAID and the World Bank to maintain his irrigation network, new businessmen come on the scene and organize various forms of trafficking and trade with China. Former kolkhoz members create local NGOs and launch projects to reel in international aid. The recent proliferation of local NGOs, of which there are apparently more than fifteen thousand, is probably the phenomenon that best illustrates this logic of resource appropriation. All of these logics have significant repercussions on the organization of power. So far, I have deliberately spoken about authority figures in the broad sense of the word, with the intention of insisting on how embedded the different compartments of social life are. This is not only a local issue; it also depends on a more general political context. It is time to jump back in time to a founding moment in the Kyrgyz national political order.

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Notes

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1. His full name is Stalin. 2. It is a variation of Buzkhazi described by Joseph Kessel in The Horsemen. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1968, London. 3. Acronym meaning an association for working the land collectively (tavarishchesvo po sovmestnoi obrabotke zemli). 4. Few Russians settled in this region. In 2000, there were still a few Russian fishermen during the summer. In the village, people recall two Russians sent to develop pig farming. They have since left the village, and pigs have disappeared from the local landscape. 5. The term means “camp” in Kyrgyz and has now taken on the sense of “village.” 6. It was built in 1993. 7. Articles published in 1995–96 in Ayil turmusho (Village Life), a regional weekly newspaper. 8. Equaling half a hectare or 1.24 acres per person. 9. One sheep for three years of work; one head of cattle or one horse for six years of work. 10. There were 30,000 sheep in 1990, and 13,000 in 1995. 11. Merino sheep were ill suited to the climate conditions at high elevations, requiring costly infrastructures, such as heated sheep barns and considerable veterinary care. 12. Fifty percent of the Kyrgyz forests have allegedly been cut down in the last 20 years. 13. More than 80 percent rural. 14. In the post-Soviet space, it is common to speak of a form of social capital in “administrative resources,” given the role of bureaucracy. 15. Majority tribe in the Aktalaa region. 16. A public company with a monopoly on gold mining. 17. In particular the Muslim World League (MWL) and Rabita, a foundation with strong ties to the Saudi kingdom. Its goal is to spread Islamic teaching and participate in uniting the Muslim world. 18. Southerners. 19. They are generally women. Furthermore, a whole set of therapists drawing from different registers (astrology, bioenergetic extrasens, etc.) have developed throughout the country. 20. Name referring to the irrigator’s traditional role.

References Abazov, Rafis. 1999. “Policy of Economic Transition in Kyrgyzstan.” Central Asian Survey 18 (2): 197–223. Abramzon, Saul M. 1960. “Etniceskii Sostav Kirgiskogo Naseleniia Severnoj Kirgizii.” Trudy Kirgizkoj Ekspedicii 4: 3–137. Anderson, Kathryn H. and Richard Pomfret. 2003. Consequences of Creating a Market Economy: Evidence from Household Surveys in Central Asia. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. Bartol’d, Vasilii. 1929. “Kirgiz.” Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. II, 1025–26. Leiden: Ed Brill. Bloch, Peter C. 2000. “Land Reform in Kyrgyzstan: Almost Done, What Next?” Problems of Post-Communism 49 (1). Fischer, Robert J., K. Schmidt, B. Steenhof, and N. Akesnshaev. 2004. Poverty and Forestry: A Case Study of Kyrgyzstan with Reference to Other Countries in West and Central Asia. Food

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Someone Ate All Our Sheep | 27

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and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Livelihood Support Programme. LSP Working Paper no. 13. Jacquesson, Svetlana. 2011. Pastoréalismes: Anthropologie historique des processus d’intégration chez les Kirghiz du Tian Shan intérieur. Berlin: Verlag. ———. 2003. “Au cœur du Tian Chan: Histoire et devenir de la transhumance au Kirghizstan.” Cahiers d’Asie centrale, no.11/12. Aix-En-Provence: Edisud. Japarov, Amantur. (in Russian). 2009. Voprosi Adaptatsi Skotovodov k usluviami rinochnih otnoshenii v knigue Mir nomadizma: proshle I budushie, Bishkek. ———. [Žaparov, Amantour]. 2010. “L’élevage du cheval au Kirghizstan.” Etudes Mongoles et Sibériennes, Centrasiatiques et Tibétaines 41. Koselleck, Reinhart. 2004. Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historic Time. Translated by Keith Tribe. New York: Columbia University Press. Humphrey, Caroline. 1983. Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society and Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mauss, Marcel, Sociologie et anthropologie, PUF, collection Quadrige, Paris, 1973. Polanyi, Karl, and Arensberg. 1975. Les Systèmes économiques dans l’Histoire et dans la Théorie. Paris: Larousse.

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– Chapter 1 –

MANAS, UNESCO, AND THE KYRGYZ FABULA

_ The Manas epic is our spiritual foundation. … The epic has been the Kyrgyz nation’s spiritual leader throughout a long development process, a search for identity and the creation of our state. … Each Kyrgyz carries an element of this epic in his heart.

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—Askar Akayev First president of the Kyrgyz Republic

At the beginning of summer 1995, the entire capital groomed its image in expectation of an international event. The long avenues were draped with colorful flags. Huge posters showed the Kyrgyz president, dressed in a suit and tie and his kalpak (traditional Kyrgyz hat), next to a horseman, Manas, the founding father of the Kyrgyz nation. The alternating two portraits made the two characters seem to blend together into a single person. Public buildings had been repainted, the main thoroughfares were cleaned, and the bright white road-markings sparkled, ready to greet prestigious foreign guests. Many public places, such as the airport, but also squares, streets, schools, and universities, were rebaptized “Manas.” In schools, the trend was to recite precepts taken from the Manas epic, and the schoolchildren were getting ready to partake in the festivities by preparing various pageants and ceremonies. Manas is a legendary figure. Therefore, these commemorations could not be made to coincide with a specific date of birth or death. This grand political ritual marked the true symbolic beginning of Kyrgyz independence. President Askar Akayev opened the festivities in front of a presti-

– 28 –

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gious array of guests. He was surrounded by the country’s elite: regional governors, ministers, state advisors, and prominent intellectuals, artists, and entertainers. More than a dozen heads of state, as well as diplomats and representatives of the main international organizations and NGOs that had recently set up offices in the country, were there to attend the various events organized for the occasion. This show of Kyrgyz independence was possible because Moscow had disengaged from Central Asia in 1991,1 thus precipitating the fall of the USSR. Kyrgyz independence was granted without being requested. Askar Akayev facilitated the arrival of a whole set of international actors who hoped to participate in reforms to promote a market economy and democracy in the region. These actors willingly lent their support in every domain, even in the construction of the new national ideology. Various international aid experts saw reinforcing the importance of Manas as a way of clearly distinguishing Kyrgyzstan from the Soviet experience as well as contributing to its emancipation from Moscow. The new national Kyrgyz imaginary was created within this international framework. The social imaginary had a political component and defined a new normative horizon in Kyrgyz society. These festivities also sealed the making of an international image, a Kyrgyz brand that would become a decisive immaterial resource thanks to the international community’s support.2 Collaboration between the Kyrgyz state and international institutions was the fruit of a convergence of reciprocal interests. On the one hand, the Kyrgyz president was seeking to legitimate the birth of his young state, and in the Manas epic he found the occasion to broadcast the existence of his country internationally. The international community, for its part, was looking to get a foothold in the region and used Kyrgyzstan as an ideal ground for disseminating its good governance ideology. Political discourse around Manas was created by local cultural entrepreneurs (political, cultural, artistic, and media elites) and met with considerable resonance on the global level. In 1992, Askar Akayev and his team decided to make national culture a major asset by marketing the Manas epic as a major contribution to world cultural heritage. The newly elected president adhered to a message of openness particularly in tune with the idea of developing democracy and a market economy in his country. Akayev’s project was greeted with a highly favorable echo in international institutions and in the United States. He gained unconditional support from Western governments and international organizations. UNESCO decided to participate actively in the Manas 1000 festivities. The various events dedicated to Manas in 1995 provided little information about the workings of the past but shed light on the creation of a national mythology.

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Manas: Political Uses of a Traditional Oral Epic The oral Manas epic was thus presented as a major national Kyrgyz contribution to the world heritage of humanity. This epic describes the biographical cycle of three generations of legendary heroes: Manas, his son Semetei, and his grandson Seitek. There is no consensus among historians determining whether Manas really existed, and there is no certainty either about when the epic appeared. The Kyrgyz willingly compare it to the Iliad and the Odyssey and other great epics. Among specialists, it is particularly famous for its length (five hundred thousand lines), which requires an extraordinary capacity for memorization. The epic was transmitted orally until the beginning of the twentieth century by storytellers, known as manaschi, through a chanted story, with many gestures to illustrate it. The story recounts episodes in the lives of its heroes, throughout which there are endless struggles against internal and external enemies. Matrimonial alliances allow the heroes and their companions to form ties to counter various oppressors. Depending on historical circumstances, the manaschi had considerable room to maneuver in defining the enemy, describing places and characters and even describing religious references, which could evolve a great deal depending on historical influences (e.g., Tengriism, shamanism, Islam). This legendary tale is not supposed to have precise historical and spatial borders, thereby allowing storytellers to be creative according to the vicissitudes of history and the context in which they want to situate the mythical narrative. Iraj Bashiri explains, “If a manaschi sees Russians in his audience, he is free to add lines in which Russian segments can be identified in order to please his audience.”3 This oral tradition lost its social function and disappeared little by little at the end of the nineteenth century, when Central Asia was incorporated into the Russian Empire. Two scholars, W. Radlov and V. Valikhanov, collected close to sixty-five different versions and laid down a definitive written version of the epic by publishing it. Later versions recorded by ethnographers underline the strong relation between the Kyrgyz people and the Tian Shan (Ala Atoo) mountain range.

Indigenization and Nationalization of the Epic In 1995, official discourse readily presented the Manas epic as a victim of Soviet censorship. However, the Soviet authorities had quickly used the epic to political ends in a context where the story was supposed to determine Kyrgyz ethnogenesis or the ethnic origin and the different stages of the nation’s evolution (stadialnost). This vision of history gave each republic a unique national history and a specific territory. It was only later,

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in 1936, that Moscow attributed a national republic to the Kyrgyz. Later versions of the Manas epic were used to justify a consubstantial bond between the Kyrgyz nation and the Tian Shan region. This was the beginning of the nationalization of the epic.4 Nowadays, the versions favored by the Kyrgyz government are sometimes presented as a revival after Soviet oppression. Since independence, political use of the Manas epic has led to establishing a timeless consubstantial relationship between the Kyrgyz and the Tian Shan range (Ala Aatoo), located in the heart of contemporary Kyrgyzstan. This political strategy of magnifying indigenousness is also a recent phenomenon tied to forms of legitimacy that are conveyed by the modern nation-state.5 The nationalization of heroes goes hand in hand with the desire to establish a specific relationship between land and nation. In the post-Soviet context, this rationale contributes to nationalizing cultural legacies where each nation claims its own unique cultural heritage. However, the Manas epic is part of a cultural heritage shared by all the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. When Bishkek was celebrating Manas, Uzbekistan was honoring Tamerlane (Petric 2001), while Alpamish became the founding father of the Kazak nation, and the Samanid Dynasty was playing the same role in Tajikistan. Each state has nationalized its culture. The new ideologies absolutely insist on interpreting their independence as the restoration of an ancient nation-state. The basis of previous political systems is not founded on national legitimacy but rather draws on references to dynastic and genealogical principles and/or divine references (i.e., Islam). National Kyrgyz ideology does not rest on a reinterpretation of the country’s recent past; rather, it favors an era that is beyond all temporal references. Overshadowing the Soviet era makes it possible to avoid questioning the Kyrgyz citizens’ participation in and adherence to the system.

Manas 1000: Political Ritual of the New Kyrgyz Identity Cultural entrepreneurs, generally intellectuals, elaborated and spread the new ideology. The first of these was the most famous Kyrgyz, the writer Chingiz Aitmatov. He was determined to make culture a major asset for his young country. The new president, Askar Akayev, followed his lead and systematically referred to Manas in his political speeches. At the opening ceremonies of the festivities he declared, “The Manas epic is our spiritual foundation. … The epic has been the Kyrgyz nation’s spiritual leader throughout a long development process, a search for identity and the creation of our state. … Each Kyrgyz carries an element of this epic in his heart (Akayev 2002). In 1994, the government began to construct the

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epic as one of the pillars of national ideology by drawing seven precepts from it: national unity, generous and tolerant humanism, friendship and cooperation among nations, harmony with nature, patriotism, a strong work and learning ethic, and reinforcement and defense of the Kyrgyz state system. A presidential decree set out three goals for the organizing committee of the lavish Manas 1000 commemorations: organize scientific and cultural events in close cooperation with UNESCO,6 restore the Manas Gumbez mausoleum in the Talas valley, and create a visitor and conference center, Manas Village (Manas Ayili), to welcome foreign tourists in the suburbs of Bishkek. Ties to UNESCO date back to the Soviet era. Akayev and Aitmatov were part of Andrei Sakharov’s parliamentary group at the end of the 1980s (Collins 2006). The Kyrgyz Soviet writer, the author of the internationally renowned story “Jamila,”7 held various important positions in the USSR. He was one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s advisors and organized the international Issyk-Kul forum, which was presented retrospectively as one of the major attempts to contribute to changing Soviet society. Several foreign figures participated in the forum, including Federico Mayor, future director general of UNESCO, and Nobel literature laureate Claude Simon. In his short novel entitled The Invitation,8 the French writer described a meeting that was not subversive and informal but instead an event steeped in protocol and rooted in a very conventional world. For him, these meetings showed nothing but the persistence of a social world where the atmosphere and all of the speeches, full of utter platitudes, rang false. Chingiz Aitmatov was just as much a politician as a writer. From 1971 to 1990, he was a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Kyrgyz Republic, and then delegate to the Supreme Soviet9 from 1966 to 1989. He was also a member of the Soviet of Nationalities from 1989 to 1991.10 He refused the position of president of the republic when Gorbachev offered it to him and suggested Askar Akayev as a candidate. His Moscow connections were indispensable for opening Kyrgyzstan to foreign countries. Chingiz Aitmatov played a decisive role in building these unprecedented transnational relations with UNESCO.11 In 1995, various scientific and political events were held all over the country. Other intellectuals followed the president’s lead. For instance, Jenishbek Sidikov, a member of the Science Academy, declared in various public speeches, “Manas is our bible, it is an encyclopedia of the Kyrgyz soul.” Various educational institutions played essential roles as well. Universities, schools, and museums were mobilized. Plays and operas were performed all year long in the capital. The famous director Tolomish Okeev was asked to shoot a film on the life of Manas. The government encouraged young Kyrgyz to participate and launched a national contest

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to reward the best young manaschi. Schoolchildren were also invited to depict the nation’s new father by contributing to a big exhibit, Manas through Children’s Eyes, at the Historical Museum in Bishkek. Numerous works were published on the epic. Various historical and commemorative programs were on TV and on the radio, and shows were dedicated to the revival of the manaschi. Propaganda was disseminated through advertising campaigns and billboards with the seven precepts written on them. The Kyrgyz school curriculum was revised to include the teaching of this new ideology, which implied promoting the Kyrgyz language even though it is not spoken by a large part of the population. Lastly, the government ordered the creation of a new award, the Order of Manas, which became the highest distinction given by the Kyrgyz state.12 One of the architects of the festivities, the author Beksultan Jakiev, justified the event using the following terms: “Given our traditions, it’s logical that this should be where people’s ethical base begins.”13 A better understanding of history was not the sole aim. Another one was to create a collective “us.” Sherimbek Sharsheev, one of the organizers of the celebrations, added that it was to “establish a new identity for this newborn country.” The goal was not only to create new temporal markers, but also to mark the country’s territory and create heritage sites.

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Manas Gumbez: A National Heritage Site Part of the festivities took place in the Talas valley at the end of the month of August to celebrate Manas’s alleged birthplace. The president came to inaugurate the opening of a restored Muslim mausoleum, which was renamed Manas Gumbez. This mausoleum is now a tourist attraction and a place of pilgrimage for Kyrgyz people. The choice of the site was not only based on archeological and historical research, but also took into account the political reality of the country. The Talas valley is closely associated with the president, Askar Akayev, who was born there, and his tribe, the Saribaguish. These choices were also part of internal political considerations and came to embody the domination of the Northern regional faction in Kyrgyz politics from 1991 to 2005. The building of a heritage site was also related to the new legitimacy of religion in the political sphere. By blending together a Muslim place of worship and Manas, Manas Gumbez created an image of a Muslim hero, thus lending the religion a timeless and structural aspect in Kyrgyz identity. The festivities were the occasion to create a continual mix of past and present. The closing ceremony of the festivities was a gigantic historical reenactment of an imaginary battle between a thousand horsemen in period costumes on an open plain. The organizers had hundreds of yurts set up on

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the vast plain. In a context of national affirmation, it was a way of sending out a message: the birth of the young Kyrgyz state was not a recent invention, and the historical reenactment attested to a long national struggle and the restoration of a lost political order. Spectators were then treated to concerts of traditional music and folk dancing. The festivities also included a parade of the Kyrgyz army. Manas could thus also embody the warrior who endlessly repeated that his people must be united (Marat 2008). The staging of this new national imaginary was also constructed in opposition to the neighboring states: Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, in the event they had plans for territorial expansion. Such commemorations are a political instrumentation of the past in which history serves as the founding myth of the young Kyrgyz state in order to sanctify its territory.

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Manas Ayili and the Building of an International Image Another heritage site was built in the capital’s suburbs. It was erected hastily so it could be inaugurated during the festivities. The edifice’s architect told an anthropologist (Wasilewska 1997) working for USAID in Kyrgyzstan, “I knew that during the Soviet period I had no chance of seeing it accepted,” he says, “but I kept working. Then, after independence, suddenly I realized that I could do it. … All those years of dreaming and working paid off. I won. I got my dream.” This person speaks of the Soviet experience as a period of oppression that, in particular, applied to the Manas epic. This corresponds to the idea of victimized Kyrgyz, echoing stereotypes conveyed for certain Westerners who were discovering the country at the same time. The edifice cannot refer to a historical reality, given the legendary aspect of Manas. The architectural ensemble is a kitsch composition of staircases around a square. Nevertheless, the goals of the present moment were the most important: preparing the country to welcome visitors and tourists in order to introduce the country and its culture to the rest of the world. The 1995 commemorations were a founding moment for creating an image that would circulate throughout the entire world. It was part of a larger desire to spark international interest. The image of a culturally rich country is an indispensable immaterial resource for building a tourism economy. The blending of past and present was in turn used by the actors selling Kyrgyzstan on the international tourism market. They therefore needed to portray a country where nature is preserved, a country endowed with an authentic culture. A brochure spoke of Kyrgyzstan as “a legendary country, Manas’ country” (Thompson, Schofield, Foster, and Bakieva 2006). It

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is a “new” country on the market whose traditions must be discovered. This image corresponds to a strong demand in the Western imaginary. Discovering a traditional world of Kyrgyz shepherds living in yurts and the idea of a pure and authentic social universe are what modern travelers searching for new places to discover dream of.14

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UNESCO: Global Entrepreneur of the Kyrgyz National Fabula President Akayev found unexpected allies in the international community when it came to building this new national imaginary. The cultural entrepreneurs of the Manas ideology were not only local actors. The UN lent its support and contributed to making Manas an intangible feature of the world heritage of humanity by declaring 1995 “The Year of Manas.” The United Nations decided to support the organization of the Manas festivities symbolically but also materially through UNESCO.15 The event also interested new private actors seeking new markets. The Coca-Cola Company, which wanted to flood the country with its beverages, was a main sponsor of the festivities. The American firm launched a line of sparkling water with the name of the national hero, and parasols with pictures of Manas and Coca-Cola dotted the new urban landscape of sidewalk cafés and restaurants. At the same time, different United Nations agencies played a role in orienting reforms of the political system. Two logics converged here. On the one hand, in the context of ideological breakdown and the end of the East-West standoff, a consensus emerged within international institutions to promote the institution of democracy and market economies worldwide. On the other hand, countries like Kyrgyzstan were looking in every direction for partnerships and saw this international support as a way to assert their sovereignty and attract new partners. The various multilateral agencies (the World Bank, IMF, etc.) were attracted by the opening up of Kyrgyzstan, which at the time embodied the avant-garde democratic process in the region. The UN resident representative in Bishkek explained, “Kyrgyzstan does not have natural resources and has opted to play the international card by posing as the champion of reforms in the region.”16 This line of action quickly led to nicknames for Kyrgyzstan. People talk about “the Switzerland of Central Asia” or “an island of democracy” to underline its specificity in the region. In exchange, the new political Kyrgyz discourse has been inspired by the paradigm of democratization expressed by international organizations. Numerous reports17 insist on the importance for this post-Soviet state to favor the emergence of a “civil

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society.” The Soviet experience is systematically vilified and presented as a period that was imposed on the Kyrgyz, who must now rediscover their “natural” history. Logically, international organizations must in turn promote the emergence of a new society, which in particular involves a renewed vision of its national history. For international organizations, discrediting the Soviet interlude and referring to a pseudo-political tradition would help Kyrgyzstan quickly establish this new vision of citizens participating in public life. UNESCO and UNDP became cultural entrepreneurs of the Manas ideology. In 1994, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution for “the commemoration of the millennium of the Kyrgyz national epic, Manas,” in which it specified that “the epic is not only the source of the Kyrgyz language and literature but also the foundation of the cultural, moral, historical, social and religious traditions of the Kyrgyz people.”18 Culture was thus naturalized and nationalized by an international organization. For its part, UNESCO considers the epic “a work for the world heritage of humanity.” It deems that Manas “represents the customs and traditions of the Kyrgyz people, which is an integral part of world cultural heritage.”19 Ironically, the UN refers to world heritage and at the same time participates in the nationalization of this work by insisting on its Kyrgyz essence. Following its consensual logic of promoting world cultural heritage, UNESCO sponsors this type of festivity and participates financially in the event, which contributes “to better communication among peoples.” This approach fits into a vast regional project in partnership with UNDP known as the “Silk Road Initiative” promoting cultural heritage in Central Asia: “Heroes and legends that a society celebrates from generation to generation are part of world cultural heritage … in Kyrgyzstan, for example, UNESCO is financing with its own budget a set of events and cultural products and UNDP has allotted $106,000 to improve the impact of Manas 1000.”20 The international organizations’ approach, by placing Kyrgyzstan in the concert of nations, also has political consequences. By officially sponsoring the festivities, the UN legitimized and consummated recognition of the Kyrgyz nation-state. UNDP has a strategy for anchoring its reforms in the country’s social reality. It has established a close link between the history of Manas and the democratization process with lyrical enthusiasm: “Kyrgyzstan has preserved its unique spirit and is now using it with conviction to create a democratic state as a central feature of the Manas epic … the origin of the state is deeply anchored in the mentalities of the Kyrgyz people. The modern Kyrgyz Republic is founded on a long and worthy history which began in the third century, and the Kyrgyz are among the first peoples to have developed the concept of state.”21

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Certain international experts participating in the political and scientific conferences during the 1995 commemorations were quick to associate Manas with the current democratization process. In a publication for general readership published by UNESCO, anthropologist Ewa Wasilewska (1996) underlines “the Democratic Spirit of Manas” and inescapably creates a link between past and present by declaring, “Kyrgyzstan has preserved its unique spirit and the ideals of its past, and now it is earnestly going about the creation—or re-creation—of the democratic, multiethnic Kyrgyz state that is a central feature of The Epic of Manas.” This use of Manas is not bothered by the possibility of factual error. No one worries about anachronism and historical falsification because commemorations of the epic were above all justified by the present situation. The primary goal of international participation was to direct Kyrgyzstan toward future political projects. The director-general of UNESCO, Federico Mayor, even drew a parallel between the legendary hero and the current president and invoked the question of democracy. In patronizing diplomatic language, he claimed, “Kyrgyzstan has become a sovereign state and has chosen the path of democracy, free enterprise and respect for human rights as the surest route to nation-building and sustainable development. The challenge is clearly immense. … But with the kind of leadership provided by President Akayev and the indispensable help of the international community, I am confident that the Kyrgyz people can find within itself the resources of energy, creativity and solidarity required to meet this historic challenge.”22 A central aspect of the different local and global entrepreneurs consists in blending past and present to often different, and sometimes even contradictory, ends.

Polysemous Perceptions of the Creation of the New National Imaginary These various discourses clash with a contemporary Kyrgyz society that is the product of the Soviet experience. The Kyrgyz Republic is made up of different nationalities.23 The Kyrgyz only barely make up the majority and live with people of other nationalities. The new ethnic-national ideology institutes a new social imaginary. Non-ethnic Kyrgyz cannot identify with this mythology of ethnic belonging and see it as harboring future discrimination. On the other hand, many Kyrgyz are enthusiastic about this modern invention of national tradition. Although the tradition of the storyteller— manaschi—had practically disappeared, hundreds of young children have begun the difficult learning process of reciting the epic. Edil, a twelve-

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year-old schoolboy said, “My grandfather asked me to learn it. He told me that way I’d be a good person.” The Manas epic is becoming a sort of moral code defining a new social behavioral norm even though it is not interpreted in the same way by all. Certain forms of resistance could even be heard among political elites and the general public during the lavish commemorations. The recently appointed Kyrgyz ombudsman, Bakir Uulu, criticized the ostentatious spending during a time of economic crisis. Secretary of State Dastan Sarygulov is in favor of reviving the traditions of Tengriism, which he holds to be the true cosmology of the Kyrgyz. Among the people, in particular among the Russian-speaking urban population, implementation of this ideology is experienced as a demand of allegiance. Dimitri explained, “I have a hard time with Manas, especially when I see that my son is made to learn things that he can’t identify with at all. … It reinforces his feeling of being different from his little Kyrgyz friends who enjoy learning it.” For many, especially for those in the south of the country who speak Uzbek, all of these lavish ceremonies are much too ostentatious and in bad taste. The festivities express a Kyrgyzification of society that privileges Kyrgyz culture to the detriment of others. Manas is presented as being ethnically Kyrgyz and thus has become a portent of marginalization and exclusion of citizens who cannot identify with this epic. The commemoration policy has contributed to political tensions existing between the north and the south of the country because these historical episodes are essentially associated with the mountainous region in the country’s north. The Manas commemorations induced the government to pursue a commemoration policy taking the south into account as well. When President Akayev was running for a second term, an overall view of the country’s territory needed to be created, integrating the valley of Fergana into national space. During the year 2000, the government organized festivities for the occasion of the three thousandth anniversary of the founding of the town Osh. The people of Osh viewed the organization of these ceremonies as a message of atonement and as compensation to the south on behalf of the Akayev government. It was also a political message to remind neighboring Uzbekistan that the second largest Kyrgyz town, populated mostly by Uzbek-speaking people, was an integral part of Kyrgyzstan. This anniversary was the occasion to make it absolutely clear that Osh was part of the Kyrgyz state. Through developing a Kyrgyz national identity that glorifies the majority group while degrading others, the Kyrgyz power constructed a neoliberal ideology that used the primacy of national indigenity to construct a new vision of the foreigner. This form of “fetishism of origin” (Comaroff 2009) was supported by the actions of

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international donors through funding the rewriting of history and project monitoring of the defense of minorities.

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Democracy, Decentralization, Tribal Identity, and Minorities Beyond the representations the Kyrgyz administration is creating with support from international organizations, a whole set of reforms are altering political practices. Decentralization programs financed by various donors are based on a new way of imagining relationships between the central and the local level. Ethnic discourse about the nation is instituting a new way of defining which citizens can participate in the exercise of political power. Emphasizing an ethnic Kyrgyz tradition has given increasing power to tribal genealogy (sanjara) and has had different consequences on the various regions in the country. Nationally, it has created a de facto supremacy of the north over the south. In the north, this discourse reinforces the role that tribal solidarity can play and excludes de facto non-Kyrgyz peoples (Russian-speakers, etc.). In the south, it reinforces the preeminence of Ishkilik Kyrgyz24 to the detriment of the large Uzbek-speaking population. The affirmation of a Kyrgyz nation-state has led to politicizing the ethnic relations between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks in the south. This new political imaginary foreshadows the marginalization of certain groups: it is obvious that various populations, the Uzbek-speaking people in the south and the Russian-speaking people in the north, cannot identify with this new ethnic-national mythology enhancing Kyrgyzness. President Akayev often invokes the image of “a common house” to integrate everyone, but implementation of such an ethnic national ideology proclaims a new de facto hierarchy. “European” populations, essentially in urban areas, have since left the country in great numbers. In the 1989 census, the makeup of the population was highly diversified, and Kyrgyz represented just over 50 percent.25 This mass population movement took place over the course of two decades, with Russian consent and amid international indifference. The exiles mention that it was difficult to remain in a country that reinforced the Kyrgyz language when their children could not speak it. In a society that is becoming more and more Kyrgyz, the “European” population is limited to a minority role and must accept inferior social positions. After two decades of independence, the national composition of Kyrgyzstan has been transformed considerably. According to the 2003 census, Russians make up only 12 percent of the population and the Kyrgyz are now a large majority, representing over 80 percent of the population.

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The different international organizations and NGOs present in Kyrgyzstan have not developed any projects promoting the idea of common citizenship. They have not devoted any specific programs to this “European” population either, implying that it did not have a legitimate status in the social space. On the other hand, they have massively supported the emergence of an Uzbek minority, considering this group a true indigenous people, following the example of other populations. This indigenous ideology fits into the globalization process and is in no way the return of a political tradition. According to this logic, the idea of a national democratic space with a majority of Kyrgyz citizens legitimizes the appearance of minorities. A whole set of programs are being set up as a sort of compensation for the institution of an ethnic Kyrgyz nation. Consequently, this naturalizes identities. An entire international setup has contributed to the emergence of a political Uzbek minority trying to create specific institutions to separate or even to create differences between the two communities. The minority principle intervenes as a legal process to compensate for the imperfections of a political order founded on ethnic national principles (Gossiaux 2002). This is expressed through the politicization of ethnic identity, and hundreds of Uzbek NGOs are quickly becoming political platforms for demanding specific rights. The creation of institutions such as the Uzbek University contributes to creating political territories for each group. These territories then often become electoral resources that foster new forms of political ascension and reveal new forms of political legitimacy.26

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Affirmation of Ethnic Identity in the South of the Country In this context of Kyrgyzification, a seemingly unavoidable movement in history, the UN as well as the OSCE are pushing Kyrgyzstan to begin a decentralization process at the same time, which is supposed to make up for the appearance of new political inequalities. One United Nations project is particularly ambiguous. Whereas, generally, a process of political decentralization applies to the whole country, this one associates decentralization with development in the south.27 The UNDP project puts forth a specific vision of political relations in one region of the country. The UN development agency is determined to ensure the implementation of a system that deals specifically with the Uzbek minority, concentrated in the south. Instead of favoring the emergence of common civic institutions, the big international NGOs are following in UNDP’s footsteps by financing Uzbek associations, schools, and universities, i.e., places that are often

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transformed into resources for new ethnic political actors. Whereas, in the past, interethnic relations did not structure political relations, government policy supported by the actions of development actors is consummating an ethnic vision of politics. Numerous problems are thus taking on ethnic connotations. One of the biggest national Kyrgyz NGOs, Foundation for Tolerance— financed by Western donors—specializes in conflict prevention and the promotion of interethnic relations. One of their actions consists, for example, in building schools for minority populations (Uzbek, Tajik). In a valley in the region of Batken, Raja Kadirova, the director of the NGO, explained, “We built a new school for the Uzbek minority that was having problems with the surrounding Kyrgyz population. The brand new school, equipped with computers and new equipment, was attacked and looted by Kyrgyz.” Injecting new resources into social spaces based on a principle of ethnic division tends to ethnicize social relations. The minority is sometimes put into a privileged situation compared to the majority. The creation of common spaces is rarely contemplated, and separate treatment for minorities by, for instance, teaching a language that is not the official state language contributes to reinforcing or even creating ethnic borders with political consequences. In this perspective, Kyrgyz government policy and the actions of international democracy engineers are founded on the institutionalization of ethnic differences.

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Enhancing Tribal Identity in the North In the north, the consequences for political logics emphasize the importance given to lineage and prompt encouragement of practices founded on tribal affiliation (uru/uruk). This policy first led to marginalizing non-Kyrgyz populations. Kyrgyzification also has repercussions on the way distinctions are made between Kyrgyz. Political discourse enhancing tradition has contributed to an instrumentation of so-called traditional identity references. Since independence, several local newspapers have published tribal and family genealogies, and many politicians spend time retracing their genealogy with the help of local historians. Each citizen is encouraged to learn his genealogy and his seven fathers ( jetti atta).28

Manas in a Context of Globalization The Manas epic makes frequent mention of relations with the enemy or the foreign presence and the need to make an alliance, even an allegiance,

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with them. Different versions of the epic mention Chinese, Mongol, Kalmuk, and Russian types of foreign presence. The enemy (kas) is within the social space, and, in the end, Manas issues a code of conduct to abide by in facing an unavoidable presence in the history of his people. One interpretation of the current use of this epic in the contemporary context can be suggested. Today’s foreign presence, with the importance of the role of international organizations and multiple donors, is experienced as an inescapable phenomenon. It is thus becoming a type of immaterial resource to be captured and manipulated in a globalized world. The ideology of opening up to and friendship with this new modern invader is linked to political practices that also demonstrate an ability to appropriate these international flows. The relation to the international sphere is somewhat ambivalent. In the epic, the relation to the enemy or the invader is also expressed in such terms. Today, alliance is no longer necessarily matrimonial, nor is it automatically military, but is linked to different forms of power projected on the Kyrgyz social space, particularly the encounter with world reform experts working for international organizations or NGOs, but also with Russian and Chinese societies.

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Notes 1. The Belavezha Accords put an end to the USSR and were signed by Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus without consulting the republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. 2. This notion refers to the idea of a consensus embodied by international institutions. It raises a whole set of problems because the action of international institutions is not always based on consensus. 3. Iraj Bashiri, “Manas: the Kyrgyz Epic,” 1999. http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/ Manas/manas.html. 4. Interpretations of the epic created tension between Moscow and the Kyrgyz authorities, who were accused of “nationalism” in the 1980s. 5. Similarities can be seen with certain situations in Africa. 6. A film was produced by UNESCO and the film company Epos: The Generous Manas, 1995. 7. In the preface to the French version, the French poet Louis Aragon said Jamila was the most beautiful love story ever written. 8. Claude Simon, L’Invitation (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1987). 9. He also held positions in publishing. He was a Communist reformer during Perestroika. 10. He was the Russian ambassador to Luxemburg before becoming Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador in Brussels to the European Union, UNESCO, and NATO until 2008. Aitmatov died in June 2008 in Germany and was honored with a national funeral. 11. He was rewarded for his contribution by being appointed ambassador, and his son, Askar, was a presidential advisor and then the Minister of Foreign Affairs until 2005. 12. It was most notably awarded to an astronaut, Charipov Salijan, who was born in Osh and worked in Russia. This decoration caused a conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uz-

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

bekistan. The Uzbek authorities consider Salijan ethnically Uzbek, while the Kyrgyz authorities consider him a Kyrgyz citizen. Quoted in “A Legendary Hero Guides a Reborn Kyrgyzstan,” New York Times, 2 January 2000. See J. Pabion (2010), “L’écotourisme au Kirghizstan post-soviétique, entre développement international et volontés locales” (doctoral dissertation, Paris, EHESS). UNESCO reportedly contributed two million dollars. Personal interview with J. Skuratowitz, June 2005. See, for example, UNDP (1995 and 1996), Human Development Report: Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek: UNDP). Resolution A/Res/49/129 adopted during the 49th session, agenda item number 12 (19 December 1994). See UNESCO report, www.unesco.kz. UNESCO in Central Asia, www.unesco.kz. UNDP (1995), Human Development Report: Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek: UNDP). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001015/101544e.pdf. One of the legacies of the Soviet system is a distinction between nationality (nationalnost) and citizenship (gradjnastvo). This is the name used for Kyrgyz who are from the south and are not part of the two wings of the tribal confederation (On/Ol Kanat) in the north. The 1989 census found 52 percent Kyrgyz; see Goskomstat SSSR, 1990–91. For example, Kadyrjan Batyrov, the president of the Uzbek University in Osh, was elected in his university’s district, where it is mandatory for students to vote. See United Nations Development Program 2003. The Kyrgyz believe that an individual should know his genealogy as far back as the seventh patrilineal generation.

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References Akayev, Askar. 2002. Kirgizskaja Gosudarstvennost’i Narodnii Epos Manas, Bishkek, Uchkun. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: New Left Books. Centlivres, Pierre, Daniel Fabre, and Françoise Zonabend. 1998. La Fabrique des Héros. Paris: MSH, Ethnologie de la France. Cahier no.12. Comaroff, John, and Jean Comaroff. 2009. Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago: Chicago University Press. ———. 2010. Zombies et Frontières á l’Ère Néo-Libérale. Le Cas de l’Afrique du Sud PostApartheid. Paris: Les Prairies Ordinaires. Collins Kathlin. 2006. Clan Politics and Regime Transition, New York, Cambridge University. Gossiaux, Jean François. 2002. Pouvoirs Ethniques dans les Balkans. Paris: Puf. Gulette, David. 2011. The Genealogical Construction of the Kyrgyz Republic: Kinship, State and Tribalism. London: Brill. Hartog, François, and Jacques Revel, eds. 2001. Les Usages Politiques du Passé. Col. Enquête, Paris, Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales. Hatto, Arthur T. 1977. The Memorial Feast for Kokotoy-Khan. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Kinzer, Stephen. 2000. “A Legendary Hero Guides a Reborn Kyrgyzstan.” New York Times, 2 January. Levin, Theodore. 2006. Where The Rivers and Mountains Sing: The Spirit of Manas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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Marat, Erica. 2008. National Ideology and State-Building in Kyrgyzstan and Tadjikistan. Silk Road Paper Series. Washington, DC: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program. Petric, Boris. 2001. “Le Musée Tamerlan en Ouzbékistan: Quête d’une Origine ou d’une Légitimité Nationale.” Socio-Anthropologie 9: 87–99. Roy, Olivier. 1997. La Nouvelle Asie Centrale ou la Fabrication des Nations. Paris: Seuil. Salmon, Christian. 2007. Storytelling: La Machine à Fabriquer des Histoires. Paris: Editions la Découverte. Smith, Rogers M. 2003. The Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Membership. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thompson K.J., P. Schofield, N. Foster, and G. Bakieva. 2006. “Kyrgyzstan’s ‘Manas’ Epos Millennium Celebrations: Postcolonial Resurgence of Turkic Culture and the Strategic Marketing of Cultural Tourism.” In David Picard and Mike Robinson, eds., Festivals, Tourism and Social Change. Clevedon: Channel View. 172–90. United Nations Development Program. 2003. Millennium Development Goal Progress Report. Bishkek: UNDP, Kyrgyzstan. Van der Heide, Nienke. 2008. Spirited Performance: The Manas Epic and Society in Kyrgyzstan. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers. Wasilweska, Ewa. 1996. “Manas at 1000: The Rebirth of Kyrgyzstan.” Aramco World 47 (3). ———. 1997. “The Past and the Present: The Power of Heroic Epics and Oral Tradition— Manas 1000.” Central Asian Survey 16 (1). Millenium Development Goal Progress Report, Undp, Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, 2003.

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– Chapter 2 –

KYRGYZSTAN AND GOOD GOVERNANCE EXPERTS

_ If Holland is the country of tulips, Kyrgyzstan is the country of NGOs. —Edil Baisalov President of Koalitsia for Civil Society and Democracy

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The Ideology of Good Governance: Minimal Government, Private Enterprise, and Civil Society The internationals work for NGOs, foundations, and international organizations. Despite their institutional diversity, they cooperate closely on many projects and often share the same vision of reforms while strongly criticizing Kyrgyz political life. Some of them meet up in the few bars and restaurants in the city center. The Fat Boys bar is one of the internationals’ favorite places to meet. One morning, several people were sitting at a table noisily commenting in English on the latest international political events. They were talking about the color revolutions and mentioned the upcoming legislative elections in Kyrgyzstan in 2005. I quickly recognized two in the group who were prominent figures in the international community: David Mikosz, country director of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), and Mike Stone, a bearded man with a strong American accent, wearing jeans and a red sweatshirt, with a baseball cap screwed on his head. Mike Stone was in charge of the local office of the NGO Freedom House and would have his moment of glory during the Tulip Revolution in March 2005, when the Kyrgyz authorities cut off the electricity of his printing press, which published various opposition newspapers. David Mikosz would also be very active, for instance, by moder– 45 –

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ating a Yahoo! group on the web and participating in demonstrations arm in arm with the opposition. Later, he would show me pictures of the Tulip Revolution, which covered the walls of his foundation. One of them showed him with his arms linked with opposition leaders (Otunbayeva) marching during the antiAkayev demonstrations. David Mikosz told me later, “It was a marvelous experience. … It was very exciting to live that historical moment side by side with the Kyrgyzs. Look, you see there, that is Edil Baisalov and Roza Otunbayeva, two stars of the Tulip Revolution, farther away you have the other revolution leaders … and the future president, Bakiyev.” An elderly man walking slowly in the road stopped in front of the Fat Boys café and asked me, “What is this place? What does that sign mean?” I explained the meaning of “fat boys” to him. The old man replied, “Ah, so that’s why I hear English. … I’m going to tell you something: do you know what this used to be? It was a store. I used to come here every day. It was a butcher shop that sold very good meat. And now look at what everything has become. … Today with my pension, I can’t buy meat anymore. But I see that there are foreigners who happily drink their coffee on the terrace. Anyway, I’ll tell you something: we used to live well and now it’s a mess since you have come. … All of this is your fault.” The old man went on his way. My neighbors smiled, vaguely amused, although they visibly had not understood a single word of our conversation. David Mikosz left the table and jumped into his huge white Cherokee Jeep to go back to his foundation, which is one of the most active in Kyrgyzstan in the field of promoting democracy. The love affair between Kyrgyzstan and international aid began in 1993 with a stream of Western governments opening embassies and cooperation agencies. Big NGOs and foundations started their activity, and international organizations like the UN, OSCE, the World Bank, the European Union, the Asian Development Bank, and the IMF also launched their programs. Kyrgyzstan thus became the new land of milk and honey for international cooperation. The country’s liberalization fit into a coproduction process between the Kyrgyz state and these new partners. Kyrgyzstan became the “Switzerland of Central Asia,”1 a model country for international aid programs. A few hundred expatriates live, for the most part, in the capital. They readily define their mission as being the realization of a unanimous desire on the part of the international community. They often call themselves “internationals”2 and settle in the Kyrgyz capital for a few years; others are consultants staying in the country for however long their expertise missions last. Even though they are not numerous, they are extremely visible in the public space. Their various offices are located near the seats of

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power. The UN has its quarters in an imposing building that used to be the Dietski Mir (children’s supermarket). Its development agency (UNDP) has the strongest presence through its various technical assistance programs. UNDP also plays a role in coordinating aid. Although UNDP’s core mandate is poverty reduction, it devotes a large part of its activity to reforming the state and political institutions to set up practices that come under the new catchword, “good governance.” Over a couple of years, this term has taken hold in various international programs, and numerous countries receiving aid must adopt it. Good governance means that the government is no longer solely responsible for managing public affairs. Private actors from the business world and civil society must also be included as stakeholders. In addition to programs for economic privatization, a specific effort has been made to favor the emergence of civil society. The UNDP representative in Bishkek, the Polish Jerzy Skuratowicz, explained, “I think Kyrgyzstan is no different from many other transition countries actually—for example, from Central Eastern Europe, Southern Eastern Europe, and the CIS countries. The first steps, I will say the first years, of the development of the civil society movement of the NGOs was very often driven by the donors quite obviously. Many of the international donor organizations have in their assistance the element precisely of building up the civil society in the country that they are providing assistance to. So, quite obviously, many of the NGOs started to emerge as a response to donor request, to the demand [on] the donor side.” Another major actor in promoting civil society is the American NGO Counterpart International, whose representative told me, “You know, during the Soviet era, there was no civil society; it was an authoritarian regime. That is why we are working to make civil society participate in the processes of democratic change; that’s our main objective.” Erkin Kasybekov succeeded the American Lee Cooper as the head of Counterpart and is now in charge of more than fifty employees who are, for the most part, Kyrgyz. Not far from Counterpart offices is the Soros Foundation, which set up its headquarters in a building near the presidential administration offices. The foundation has been active in Kyrgyzstan since 1999, and its president, Georges Soros, has been to Bishkek on several occasions to visit the President Askar Akayev. For a time, he maintained close ties with head of state Askar Akayev until their relationship became strained in 2004 before the Tulip Revolution. Soros’s representative, a Kyrgyz in his forties, explained, “Soros spends billions developing NGOs here and all over the ex-USSR, and Kyrgyzstan serves more or less as a model to follow. In fact, Kyrgyzstan is the favorite country of donors and is more or less a pilot country for defining reforms and projects.”

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The World Bank, whose mandate is to grant loans, has also been developing good governance and civil society projects since the early 1990s. Its representative, Chris Lovelace, justifies this approach: “The bank’s role is to fight poverty here and elsewhere with passion and professionalism by facilitating credit for the government but also for civil society. The development of civil society is a priority in our strategy, and we give grants and credits to local organizations.” The dominant good governance discourse is organized around the idea that a society is made up of three clearly distinct compartments and the state has a minimal role to play in social life. Civil society has become one of the priorities among internationals. Lovelace continued, “The World Bank views the richness of civil society as key to developing our strategy here in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere in the world. My opinion is that Kyrgyzstan, with its more than 6,000 NGOs, is destined to a bright future.” Even if they deny it, these various actors participate in fashioning new political logics.

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The UNDP: Decline of the State, Promotion of Local and Traditional Political Practices This coproduction of the new organization of society resulted in privatization, the closing down of the kolkhozes, and the establishment of local governing bodies in accordance with the 1995 law. In rural areas, new local executive bodies, the 487 Ayil okmotu (local authorities), have replaced the Russian municipalni obrozovonie adopted for a time by the Kyrgyz government. This change of course is consistent with the increasing influence of international institutions seeking to encourage the emergence of a vernacular political tradition. Development workers even present their action as participating in the revival of a local tradition. This is the continuation on the local level of the creation of the new political imaginary around Manas. Askar Akayev, quoted at the beginning of a UNDP report, declared his support for the process: “Local governance development is a powerful engine of democratic change in the Republic.”3 He readily followed UNDP’s advice and in 2002 even adopted “a national decentralization strategy” that was to be adapted to Kyrgyzstan by two UNDP consultants, Richard Huntington and Robertson Work, who conceptualize good governance programs worldwide. Robertson Work, whom I met at the UNDP headquarters in New York, denied wanting to disseminate a worldwide universal norm. He explained, “Good governance is no longer a political issue but has become merely a technical problem that we systematically adapt to the local reality.”

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This vision of technical assistance depoliticizes debates about which state model the country should adopt. In Kyrgyzstan, enhancing local tradition involves seriously reshaping the vocabulary used and discrediting the previous political experience. In one report, UNDP considered that “it was not easy to take the first steps toward building a democratic society on the ruins of the old centralized political and economic system but the young sovereign state had no other alternative.”4 Political terms commonly used during the Soviet era have disappeared to make way for the return or even the invention of terms deemed traditional. This semantic overhaul was done to enhance the image of donors so as to contribute to fashioning a specifically Kyrgyz political form while aiming for a completely different objective, that of bringing about the decline of the state. The different actors all agreed on a common ideology, sometimes described as a neoliberal ideology of minimal government, and strove to change the role of the state whose power was regarded as excessive or inefficient. Assemblies were rebaptized. The use of soviet, for example, was thrown out the window and replaced by Kengesh. Various initiatives try to multiply more or less formal places for deliberation. The term Kurultai, which had disappeared, has reappeared in Kyrgyz vocabulary. It was President Akayev who launched the first big assembly, a Kurultai uniting all of the Kyrgyzs in the world, whom he invited to the Manas 1000 festivities. The term Kurultai was then reused at different levels to increase occasions for deliberation. International cooperation thus relied on collaboration with local elites to create a new political vocabulary and unprecedented ways of thinking about political relations. A new Ministry of Local Governance and Regional Development was created. Its minister, T. Omuraliev, declared, “According to international experts, Kyrgyzstan is first among post-Soviet states in local governance development. It is always difficult to be first and I would like to express my gratitude to UNDP for the support it extends to us by creating models of government decentralization in our hour of need.”5 In this project, decentralization and enhancing everything local appears to be a two-track process. A specific project for the south of the country is dedicated to conflict resolution. Such a project tends to naturalize ethnic differences and build an ethnic political actor out of the Uzbek minority. Behind this show of enthusiasm, this new ministry, located in a rundown building, without portfolio and without a true administration, symbolizes a form of resistance to these radical reforms. The ministry houses the UNDP Political and Administrative Local Governance Program.6 This program is chaired by a man who was once one of the country’s leading politicians, the former Supreme Soviet chairman turned international consultant for UNDP. Temir Koshoev, a fervent servant of the previous regime, met with me and

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quickly delivered a line of argument that he knew by heart: “International experience has shown that local governance makes it possible to be closer to citizens and solve their day-to-day problems. That is what we are doing in Kyrgyz society.” The decentralization process looks more like a process of state disengagement. Temir Koshoev was in charge of encouraging the emergence of assemblies. There are new local authorities, but there are also other actors who need to be included in decision-making and are not necessarily political authorities. On the local level, the project supports the creation of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) to establish, according to one UNDP report, “a more balanced system of territorial governance and to better utilize the hidden potential of the local population.”7 Condemning passivity, one of the pillars of the dominant development ideology, requires social mobilization in the form of new social groups at the grassroots level. In its 2002 report, UNDP insists “people understand that it is time for them to stop depending blindly on state institutions, to take the wheel and become active participants in the government process.”8 These CBOs have emerged in the country thanks to the distribution of grants. According to UNDP, CBOs are supposed to “include all members of local communities at the village municipality level irrespective of ethnic background.”9 They should make it possible to resolve the community’s problems by taking part in deliberations because, according to UNDP, “this is evidenced by the improved social economic infrastructure and noticeable improvements in living conditions.”10 Temir Koshoev, a longtime defender of the Soviet planned economy, has had no trouble converting to the international creed: “This way the community will be able to express its needs to the state and not the other way around. It’s time to put an end to this infantilizing situation. By digging wells, building roads and resource centers, the local situation improves. The days of freeloading, the days when no one did anything and expected the state to take care of everything, are over.” Ironically, his line is not really at odds with the Soviet era. Elites frequently denounced local nepotism and the people’s parasitism to explain the system’s collapse. Development agencies praise new heroes that show activism and initiative. Testimonials are used to illustrate the new approach throughout donors’ reports and brochures. Kyrgyz citizens tell their success stories. For example, one of the UNDP reports recounts one of these projects: “In a village called Cholpon (Naryn Oblast), CBOs formed to dig a well to have fresh water and build a clinic. Six CBOs worked together to partake in micro-credit activities and decided to build their own school. UNDP helped by granting extra funds to this group and with the help of the authorities a school was opened proving that together the inhabitants are a force to be reckoned with.” Failures and deadlocks are never mentioned.

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Pilot projects and experiments are promoted without examining their overall political coherence. New trends appear each year sweeping away past priorities, which immediately become obsolete. Experts go from one project to another without taking political responsibility for the measures they contribute to implementing.

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From an Economic Planning Culture to a Project Culture To implement a new conception of social mobilization, new techniques must be learned: how to organize locally, how to draft a project proposal, draw up a budget, write a business plan, and submit a tender. This political process has led to the adoption of English terms to express the new reality. The beneficiaries of various training courses, NGO leaders and local authority chiefs speak easily about “grants,” “mikrokredit,” “NGOs,” “donors,” and “tenders,” all words that have entered Kyrgyz vocabulary. It is the beginning of the “social life of projects,” to use the term of an anthropologist who studied the same phenomenon in Albania (Sampson 1996). It means going from a planned society to a project society. Thousands of seminars disseminate the method developed in particular by Robert Chambers, an advocate of “participation,” which consists in showing that an action should be the fruit of an initiative, and then discussion, and finally public debate. All Kyrgyz villages and various groups are therefore invited to submit an action plan directly to donors without going through state institutions. A UNDP volunteer11 in charge of a project in the Naryn region states, “It’s time to do away with this Soviet ‘top-down’ approach and move on to the ‘bottom-up.’” These programs are devoted to target populations and new local leaders who are supposed to implement good governance. In Togolok Moldo, the Murab, with his irrigation association and World Bank and USAID cooperation, and the head of the NGO Shepherd’s Life, with the NGO Helvetas, are both accustomed to the exercise. Local correspondents are necessary to lay the foundations of good governance. This vision posits a radical opposition between a civil society embodying “the bottom” and a state representing “the top.” It consists in completely sweeping away the past as if Soviet Central Asia was devoid of any type of social association or organization. Olivier Roy (2002) contests this vision: “Allegedly there was no ‘civil society’ in Central Asia. However, it is not possible to study real social and political life without criticizing this myth, which structures political and social action undertaken today by outsiders in order to open Central Asian societies and regimes.” The notion of civil society is conjured up to

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describe something missing, “a lack of civil society.” It is used to describe a horizon, establishing a hierarchy between Western societies endowed with an elaborate civil society and post-socialist societies that allegedly lack civil societies. It could be measured in particular by the number of NGOs; the more NGOs there are, the more democratic the society. State reform should be accompanied by an increase in the number of local NGOs. USAID maintains, “The countries of Central Asia consistently rank at the bottom of the Europe and Eurasia Bureau’s NGO Sustainability Index. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan ranked 21st, 25th, 26th and 28th, respectively. Kyrgyzstan, which has a somewhat vibrant civil society, ranked 11th out of 28 countries in 2000. While the advocacy skills and organizational capacity of NGOs in the region are improving, a historical lack of activism, the legal environment and financial viability continue to constrain their growth.” For its part, the American NGO Freedom House’s12 assessment establishes a worldwide ranking and considers Kyrgyzstan as “partly free” because “Kyrgyzstan has a relatively lively civil society, and the participation of NGOs and independent media in the process is important.”13 Freedom House evaluates political freedom quantitatively. Since 2000, Kyrgyzstan, which for a time was among the best-ranked countries in the region, has joined the other Central Asian countries at the bottom of the heap, in 158th place. This type of evaluation has become increasingly common as the number of so-called watchdog transnational organizations has multiplied.14 These assessments can have consequences on Western government policies and on donors who may determine their aid according to these rankings. They put pressure on governments receiving aid. Certain international organizations also turn to normative instruments of measure. UNDP also uses statistical tools to assess the human development potential of each country in quantitative terms, enabling it to establish a worldwide comparison.15

Promoting Democracy Since the end of the East-West standoff, references to civil society have come to underline the necessity of disseminating democracy worldwide. In the face of political horrors and economic failures, adopting electoral democracy is viewed as the only way to escape them. “Democracy” thus infuses the world’s political imaginary to such an extent that the word does not seem to mean much of anything anymore. Only a very restrictive form of democracy has triumphed and served as the framework for democratization actors to design their development policies in the 1990s. In essence, it refers to the institutional interpretation Schumpeter makes of

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democracy in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). For Schumpeter, democracy is above all a unique way of making decisions by choosing representatives among the people through elections. This idea was taken up by Anglo-Saxon political scientists. For Huntington (1991), elections represent the precise moment when democracy emerges. They make it possible to know if there is a plurality of parties or fraud. For Horowitz, democracy can be evaluated quantitatively (rating of democracy), and universal measuring instruments can be devised to categorize regimes. In a similar perspective, Putnam (1993) considers that it is possible to evaluate the “civicness” of a country by the number of associations, newspapers, and profile of its voters and the freedom they have. This normative conception of democracy infuses the Journal of Democracy, which is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the main American institution in charge of “exporting democracy” (Guilhot 2005). This think tank wields considerable influence over international institutions, large foundations, and NGOs that implement democratization projects. This vision of democracy has adopted a sort of “electoral fetishism” (Bertrand, Briquet, and Pels 2007) by losing sight of the other institutions linked to democratic political practices. Although the Kyrgyz elites have adapted to the democratic dogma in their discourse, things are more complicated in practice. Askar Akayev (1995: 20) played the international card mainly to assert his power by drawing from a political tradition reportedly stifled during the Soviet era: “The seeds of democracy were already present in Kyrgyz soil. Kyrgyz way of life presupposed a democratic structure. Centuries ago, we elected our leaders democratically.” The Kyrgyz president built a conventional discourse on democracy for donors. During a conference at Columbia University, for example, he spoke of “democratic winds from the Tian Shan” to underline the naturally democratic character of Kyrgyz people and even referred to a concrete historical example to support his claim by mentioning the eminent political role of a Kyrgyz woman, Kurmanjan,16 in the nineteenth century. He compared her to the “great democratic figures of Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher” (Akayev 1993). The participation of women in political life became an element to put forth to donors. The emergence of civil society in Kyrgyzstan is presented as an almost natural phenomenon for a society that can at last express its opinions. This would thus be an indigenous phenomenon, a grassroots, bottom-up movement. The history of the development of local NGOs in Kyrgyzstan, however, charts quite an opposite course. Government officials in Soviet institutions involved in the emancipation of woman and the environment traveled and, early on, tapped into

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the movements they mixed with during international conferences. The first organizations17 appeared through these networks, which for the most part were based in Moscow. In 1992, the massive arrival of embassies, international organizations, and international NGOs caused a major exodus among Kyrgyz state elites. Many left to work for these various organizations. In 1993, three actors played a major role in the birth of a network of NGOs: development agencies from UNDP, the United States, and the NGO Counterpart International. UNDP created the International Center for Training and Research (INTRAC). Later, in 2001, they launched a civil society program. The NGO Interbilim, with women from feminist and environmentalist networks, made a place for itself in the new social landscape. Interbilim’s president, Sasykbaeva, became known by denouncing environmental problems such as mercury pollution in Lake Issyk-Kul caused by a Canadian company that operated the Kumtor gold mine. Moldogazieva, a woman in charge of an NGO, who at the time was a civil servant in the Kyrgyz state, declared, “I learned about the method of NGOs [in 1995 when I] attended the World Women’s Conference in Beijing.”18 Tolikan Ismailova, the founder of the NGO Koalitsia, also started at Interbilim. The American NGO Counterpart specialized in civil society development and played an important role in the emergence of the first network of NGOs by organizing training seminars. Moldogazieva, director of the Human Development Center, stated, “Training courses run by Counterpart Consortium played a great role.”19 These new NGO workers had to acquire the grant and project culture. Others, former senior Kyrgyz officials, became employees of international agencies and then quit their jobs to create their own NGOs. Raja Kadirova, an HCR employee, for example, left the UN agency to start her own NGO, Foundation for Tolerance International, which quickly became a prominent actor in conflict resolution in the south of the country.20 The Soros Foundation opened an office and launched a civil society program.21 It has created cultural centers and facilitates the emergence of associations representing minorities (ethnic or other) and private media. Alongside their support of this policy, donors put pressure on Kyrgyz authorities and helped them adopt a law on the freedom of association, which was passed in 1999. Furthermore, the big national Kyrgyz NGOs22 have encouraged the emergence of a network of local NGOs. They inevitably fit into a hierarchical relation with these local NGOs scattered throughout the entire country. Financing often goes through their hands, and they in turn depend on the allocation of foreign funds. For example, the American agency USAID delegates its action to the NGO Counterpart. According to the USAID website, “USAID’s efforts to encourage the

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development of stronger and more sustainable organizations in Central Asia are pursued through three complementary programs: Counterpart Consortium’s NGO support initiative, which is active in all five countries of Central Asia; the National Democratic Institute’s (NDI) work with civic partners in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; and the Initiative for Social Action and Renewal’s (ISAR) work with environmental NGOs throughout Central Asia.”23 Consequently, contrary to what development actors claim, the boom of local NGOs in Kyrgyzstan is linked to international action and has led to the emergence of a new elite of local intermediaries who are inextricably associated with the presence of international organizations and NGOs.

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The Development of Local Kyrgyz NGOs This policy produced an impressive number of local NGOs (over ten thousand)24 at the end of the 1990s. They are indeed nongovernmental and are no longer dependent on the Kyrgyz state, but neither their financing nor their legitimacy is really founded on local social forces. These Kyrgyz NGOs imply the idea of being nonprofit, which distorts the issue of their social status. Wages, privileges (official cars, travel expenses, etc.), and social distinction codes are indications of the advent of an elite tied to the international aid industry. In 1999, a new phase began with the emergence of NGOs dealing directly with issues of a political order. One of the first NGO forums, bringing together seventy local NGOs, became the Coalition for Civil Society and Democracy in 1997. Tolikan Ismailov, an Interbilim NGO consort, left to found Koalitsia thanks to support from the American foundation, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The young NGO’s first goal was election observation during the 1999 referendum,25 mobilizing fifteen hundred observers.

Electoral Assistance: Technical Aid or Political Interference Elections play a decisive role because they touch on the way a society chooses its political body. The UN development agency works closely with national cooperation agencies and political foundations such as IFES and NDI in the field of electoral system reforms. UNDP draws directly on one of its own funds26—the Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund— for the work it does in this field. Implementation of these reforms cannot be done without Kyrgyz government cooperation. The science of the state is indispensable for organizing elections in order to count, categorize, and

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inventory. Before becoming political territories to conquer, the national territory, legislative districts, and villages must be socially reconceived in relation to the new vision of power. UNDP’s main project was precisely to reform the central electoral commission and set up a centralized computerized system, the Shailoo System. Later, UNDP started a new project, “Supporting Democratic Elections in Kyrgyzstan,” in the fall of 2004 to help the electoral commission financially27 and materially so it could become independent. This project set up a computerized electoral system to register voters and to count votes. The electoral commission moved into a new building that is now separate from the government. UNDP nevertheless underlines that “organizing elections is an internal affair and the preparation and holding of elections must be financed by the national budget. … Our assistance plays an intermediary role among donors to mobilize technical and financial resources to establish sustainable development of institutions that meet international standards.” UNDP claims responsibility for technical aid to encourage the technical administration of the electoral process. In its brochure on these activities in the field of election monitoring, Kyrgyzstan is used as an example for the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe: “Although UNDP is engaged in only three countries in the Europe and CIS region, recent events in the region—in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan—have afforded the opportunity for UNDP to play a key political brokerage role around the electoral process. … UNDP Kyrgyzstan designed and produced for the Central Election Commission an election-related newspaper that contained … voter education information regarding E-Day procedures [and] prohibition of vote-buying.”28 UNDP collaborates with American foundations to distribute brochures and finance civic actions on TV and on the radio. Jerzy Skuratowicz told me, “Transparent and fair elections is the first step toward democracy.”

Notes 1. See, for example, the articles in Forbes, September 1994, or in the Financial Times, May 1993. 2. Term used by Kimberley Coles to designate this transnational elite. 3. UNDP Annual Report (2002), The Government of the Kyrgyz Republic and the UNDP: Political and Administrative Local Governance Programme (Bishkek), 5. 4. UNDP Annual Report (2002), 7. 5. UNDP Annual Report (2002), 11. 6. This UNDP program is based on the cooperation of certain governments (Norway, Denmark), international organizations (USAID), and NGOs like Mercy Corps, the Asian

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7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

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26.

27. 28.

Development Bank, the World Bank, the Koweit Social Forum, the Arab Gulf Fund, the Soros Foundation, TACIS, Counterpart Consortium, and Save the Children. UNDP Report (2002), 7. UNDP Report (2002), 31. UNDP Report (2002), 31 UNDP Report (2002), 32. UNVs are UN volunteers and usually work on projects. “Freedom House,” Freedom Review no. 1(1995): 15. See “International Crisis Group,” Asia Report no. 81 (2004). The NGO Transparency International establishes a worldwide ranking based on an index measuring corruption and condemns Kyrgyzstan by ranking it 166th on its Corruption Perceptions Index (2009). Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, Reporters Sans Frontières, etc. can also be mentioned. UNDP ranked Kyrgyzstan 120th in 2009. Kurmanjan was chosen according to a genealogical principle because she was the daughter of a Kyrgyz tribal chief who died suddenly during a period of intense military conflict. For example, Diamond International Association, Ecolog Club, and Memorial. “Review of the History of Establishment and Development of the NGO Sector in the Kyrgyz Republic,” The Association of Civil Society Support Centers (Bishkek, 2006): 28. Ibid., 140. The NGO was created after a conflict in the Batken region attracted international attention to Kyrgyzstan. The NGO specializes in conflict prevention, religious tolerance, and interethnic relations. Civil Society Program Block. They are often branches of a large international NGO. See www.USAID.gov. The figures were provided by the Kyrgyz Republic Ministry of Justice. See also the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2006, “Influence of Civil Society on Human Development,” www.undp.kg. The question was whether to change the constitution to allow president Akayev to serve for an additional term. UNDP works by project and by country. Its projects are not necessarily financed by the general budget. Some Western countries thus directly fund projects that are not submitted to the organization’s consensual procedures. US$800,000 wsd put at the project’s disposal out of funds from UNDP, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Bureau for Development Policy Democratic Governance Group, “Fast Facts: UNDP and Electoral Systems and Processes,” www.undp.org/governance.

References Akayev, Askar. 1993. Celovek Bez Serebini: Askar Akayev. Bishkek: Asaba. ———. 1995. Kyrgyzstan on the Way to Progress and Democracy. Bishkek. Atlani, Laetitia. 2005. “Les Ong à l’Heure de la Bonne Gouvernance.” Autrepart 35. ———. 2005. Au Bonheur des Autres: Anthropologie de l’Aide Humanitaire. Nanterre: Société d’Ethnologie. Bertrand, Romain, Jean-Louis Briquet, and Peter Pels. 2007. Cultures of Voting: The Hidden History of the Secret Ballot. London: Hurst.

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Blundo, Giorgio, and Pierre-Yves Lemeur. 2009. The Governance of Daily Life in Africa. Ethnographic Explorations of Public and Collective Services. Leiden: Brill. Chambers, Robert. 1994. “Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA): Analysis of Experience.” World Development 22 (9): 1253–68. Ferguson, James. 1990. The Anti-Politics Machines. Development, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Penguin. Guilhot, Nicolas. 2005. The Democracy Makers: Human Rights and International Order. New York: Columbia University Press. Huntington, Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Mandel, Ruth. 2002. Seeding Civil Society. London: Routledge. Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Roy, Olivier. 2002. Preface. In Boris Petric, Pouvoir, Don et Réseaux en Ouzbékistan Post-Soviétique. Paris: Puf. Ruffin, Michael H., and Holt, eds. 1999. Civil Society in Central Asia. Wahsington. University of Washington Press. Sampson, Steven. 1996. “The Social Life of Projects: Importing Civil Society in Albania.” In Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn, eds., Civil Society: Challenging Western Models. London: Routledge. Schumpeter, Joseph. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Routledge.

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– Chapter 3 –

ELECTIONS AND THE PROMOTION OF DEMOCRACY

_ We are a nonpartisan organization; we do not support any political party. You rarely hear about us because IFES usually does not use its name. … We have organized elections for the UN in Iraq and Afghanistan. … Electoral expertise is what we offer countries like Kyrgyzstan that want to meet international standards. —David Mikosz Country director for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems

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Ethnography of an Election May 2004: A beautiful day was dawning in Togolok Moldo. After a harsh, snowy winter, trees were budding. After long months of waiting, human activities outside of the domestic sphere were gradually starting up again. On this May morning, small groups of men wearing suits and kalpaks on their heads were walking around the village. Some had gathered near a house, others squatted around a car parked on the main street to share a bottle of vodka. They were all discussing the day’s big event: elections were being held to choose a new village council (Ayil Kengesh). Others slowly converged toward the school. Not far from there, we were part of a large group of people wanting to enter the gymnasium, which had been turned into a polling station. A police officer controlled the entrance and would not let any of us in. Zamir, the village chief, cut through the crowd and persuaded the chairman of the electoral commission to let us in. The citizens of Togolok Moldo had again been called upon to vote. The number of elections in Kyrgyzstan since independence has turned voting – 59 –

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into a national pastime. In December 2001, the Kyrgyz voted to elect chiefs of the new local government bodies (ayil okmotu). The national government thus presented this election as the first democratic local election in the region. In most cases, in spite of a large number of candidates, officials previously appointed by the executive were elected.1 Togolok Moldo was therefore asked to confirm or contest the authority vested in Zamir, who had recently been elected. Prior to the vote, electoral fervor was reflected in the impressive number of candidates. More than a dozen village inhabitants wanted to be part of the municipal council. Little by little, villagers came to vote, one after another. A group of young people hung around outside, amused by the new control device and intrigued by the indelible ink that was put on their hands. The elections had electrified the atmosphere in the village; a mixture of tension and festive spirit reigned. This morning, rather unusually, Zamir participated only indirectly in the organization of the elections. He reminded us that there had, in fact, been elections during the Soviet era, in particular to choose the kolkhoz chairman: “A delegation came from the Rayon and introduced the new chairman to the kolkhoz members. Afterwards there was a vote by a show of hands, which was merely a way of validating the choice imposed from up above; the vote was often unanimous.” On this day, he simply put the village school at the electoral commission’s disposal for the elections and let the chairman of the electoral commission, who was from another village, ensure that the proceedings went smoothly. The chairman wanted to demonstrate his authority to the mayor and asked us to produce the administrative authorization that allowed us to enter the building, declaring, “We are here to make sure the election is honest and orderly; there is a code to respect for journalists and observers. … I must check the IFES handbook to see if you are allowed in here. … We’ve been trained for this. … We took an IFES training course for electoral commissions.” The US-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), which has been present in Kyrgyzstan since 1994, offers training courses in election monitoring. They train members of electoral commissions, publish the electoral code, and provide instruction manuals for commission members. The chairman of the commission explained that the makeup of an electoral commission takes into account new principles: “In everyday life, I work for a private telecom company at the rayon (district) level, and electoral commissions must no longer be run by people from the local administration. A third of the people should be from civil society, a third from the private sector, and a third should be government officials, but this rule is not always easy to follow.” Commission members scrupulously set up the voting apparatus before opening the doors. The chairman directed the operation and arranged the

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gymnasium according to a specific layout. The electoral commission sat behind a row of tables set up on the right-hand side of the room. Two people were in charge of regulating the flow of voters at the entrance. They were equipped with an ultraviolet lamp put at their disposal by the administration and IFES. This new antifraud device (markirovka), in conjunction with the application of invisible ink to voters’ hands, aims to prevent multiple votes. The list of candidates was posted on a large bulletin board at the entrance. The first desk was in charge of checking the validity of voters’ documents. At the second desk was the voter roll to be signed. Ballots were on a third table. Farther along, in line with the tables, was a polling booth. The ballot box was set up at the far end in the middle of the room, with a man wearing a red armband sitting nearby. Another small red ballot box, this one a mobile ballot box,2 sat on a chair and would be used to poll citizens who were unable to get to the polling station. On the other side of the room, two men in their fifties sat across from the commission and observed in silence as the electoral setup was put into place. They had big orange cards hanging around their necks explicitly identifying their role as observers. They were waiting for election day to begin and were filling out charts in a notebook that would be used to compile statistics to verify the election’s validity and estimate voter turnout. A little later, the observers were joined by representatives of the candidates. A certain tension was noticeable between the two groups in the room, which avoided each other and did not communicate with each other. I struck up a conversation with one of the observers, who told me, “We are from a neighboring village and we were asked to come as observers for the Koalitsia network; it’s a national NGO for civil society and democracy. … We are members of local NGOs. Mine is called Bai Basiz [the name of a tribe]. In fact, if you can help us, we are looking for a grant for our NGO. … There are no jobs in our village, so a young man from Bishkek told me to start an environmental NGO because he told me that it was a key issue. It’s true that we live in a beautiful area and plus it provides me with a little income.” NGOs appeared suddenly on the Kyrgyz social horizon and are now part of the country’s political landscape. The sectors of activity correspond to the broad orientations supported by donors. The second observer was in charge of the NGO Bilim Plus, dedicated to water issues. The way he described his NGO confirmed the gap between local and global logics: “The NGO grew out of a neighborhood initiative because, you know, there are no jobs in our area and all kolkhozes were decimated. So we created an NGO because that can attract money and provide incomes and help get us back on our feet! Nowadays everyone is leaving.” NGOs are not conceived as organizations representing social forces, but as a way to tap

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into international financing. Election organization thus involves complex logistics and a whole system using administrative techniques of counting, census taking, and an administrative culture. It is necessary to leave the village once again to apprehend the advent of such an operation.

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IFES and Elections: Democracy@large The political liberalization of Kyrgyzstan does not boil down to the increase in the number of candidates or the blossoming of political parties because democratic action goes hand in hand with a material and concrete political apparatus, in particular at election time. It is a specific type of power that is indissociable from the logics of quantification. The state and its administrative bodies need to have the ability to count and to individualize space and people. Holding elections involves a whole administrative apparatus and a bureaucratic culture capable of organizing them. The delineation of electoral districts is based on spatial administration and the existence of secular public places (schools, administrative buildings) where elections can be held. On election day, voting results must be managed nationwide. Citizens must be recognized individually as voters, and bureaucratic techniques of recognition resulting in the production of official documents are indispensable. Voting is thus explicitly linked to government action and the existence of a bureaucratic apparatus. The individual and secret ballot is increasingly becoming a universal norm, as if it had always been self-evident. The history of societies, however, reveals a wide diversity of procedures for choosing representatives. A secret ballot theoretically makes it possible to express one’s political opinion individually, allowing individuals to free themselves from social relations of domination by evading collective pressure. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) is highly active in this field in Kyrgyzstan. The foundation’s headquarters is located in a house in the embassy and ministry district and can be spotted thanks to a sign with the organization’s slogan in English, “Democracy@large.” Dan, a young Serb who studied in the United States and France, is in charge of training courses for electoral commission trainers. He has already had a good deal of experience in promoting democracy: “First, I was in Bosnia as a translator for the US Army, afterwards I was in Afghanistan with a French NGO, Acted, and then I was an observer in Georgia during the Rose Revolution.” He shares his office with Dimitry, a Russian in his fifties and a former seismologist from the Academy of Sciences in Turkmenistan who has been working for IFES in the region for several years. He told me, “After Turkmenistan became independent, as a Russian, I decided to put

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myself under the American umbrella by working for them.” Dan gave me a quick tour of the premises while explaining that IFES is a piece of a rather complex puzzle working to promote democracy along with other NGOs and American foundations. We continued the tour and came to a big open office space where other staff members were preparing various brochures to be distributed during upcoming training sessions. The country director, David Mikosz, then met with me in his office, which is decorated with photos and posters referring to American political history. He pointed to a framed picture of his wife and his daughter on his desk: “My wife is a local woman. I feel close to the people here. I’m not here to impose a Western vision but universal values instead.” He then went on to talk about IFES’s role: “We are a nonpartisan organization; we do not support any political party. You rarely hear about us because IFES usually does not use its name. … We have organized elections for the UN in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you think electoral expertise is a good thing. … Elections are the largest peaceful demonstration in a country. They require logistical and technical expertise and that is exactly what we offer countries like Kyrgyzstan that want to meet international standards. Not political interference, only technical assistance.” Yet, IFES has been criticized a great deal for interference in political processes abroad.3 Therefore, Mikosz emphasizes IFES’s technical expertise: “You have seen that we are not only Americans. I studied in England, my assistants are Serb and Russian, the others are Kyrgyz, and you will see that our trainers are Kyrgyz working with Kyrgyz. Moreover, many have taken part in practical experiments in their countries. … Some have worked in Serbia for NATO, which had a project on conflict resolution. … In a way we are a group of universal technical experts. We are a kind of free bureaucracy that is available for elections all over the world.” The organization is presented as a group of individuals who have united around an independent and charitable mission. Training is an essential aspect. Mikosz explained, “Last time we trained twenty-two thousand electoral commission members. They were very grateful that someone paid attention to them. It may seem naïve but we treated them with respect by giving them a good meal, handbooks, and supplies, and we spent a lot of time training them. They told us that it was the first time anyone had taken the time to explain the law to them. … We explain Kyrgyz law to the Kyrgyz people.” David Mikosz, who used to work for the World Bank in Uzbekistan, embodies the figure of a new kind of missionary among internationals. He openly states his convictions and has the feeling that he is participating in a vast, almost messianic, global movement in favor of democracy and freedom. Dan and Dimitry fall into a different category. They rarely mention

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this feeling of participating in a great universal project. Dan prefers to talk about the transmission of skills and professionalism: “I do my job, that’s all. … What interests me in IFES is the technical side. We teach people concrete things. At a certain point, aid involves the transmission of specific knowledge. That’s what I like about training courses. I train the people who are going to train the Kyrgyz.” They thus train Kyrgyz who, in turn, are in charge of teaching election procedures among Kyrgyz citizens.

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Ethnography of an American Political Foundation Training Session I sat in on one of the training sessions for electoral commission members. For two days the trainers worked with future chairpersons and had them internalize their future responsibility through role-plays. The activity consisted in acting out situations where voters did not respect the law. One woman came to the polling station yet refused to have the indelible ink used in the new antifraud system4 put on her hands. She said, “No, I don’t want to; I’ve heard it causes disease. I don’t want that stuff on my hands.” She was told to talk to the commission secretary, who reminded her that it was the law and that she could not vote unless she abided by the electoral code. Next, there was a voter carrying dubious identification. The chairman of the commission reminded him which documents were accepted and asked him to leave the room. Then the electoral commission had to deal with an irate voter who claimed that she lived in the village but was not on the voter roll. The last situation was a voter who wanted to vote for his parents who could not get to the polling station. The trainer interrupted the role-play and asked the others in the room to give their opinion and suggest solutions. The other trainer made a list of the various answers on a board, where there was a problem tree. The trainer spoke again to end the session. She congratulated the audience and wished the future chairmen good luck. One of the trainees stood up and spoke on behalf of the group. She thanked the trainers warmly and her fellow trainees applauded. She invited the trainers to come share an impromptu meal. Finally, she went up to the trainers’ desk and offered them gifts. The lead trainer was embarrassed and categorically refused the presents. Confronted with the group’s incomprehension, she addressed the whole audience. “You see, this is the way corruption begins. You cannot accept gifts; when you are commission chairs, people will give you gifts, too, but you absolutely must refuse. … I don’t get it, for two days we’ve been discussing all of this and obviously you haven’t understood.

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This culture of gift giving must stop. I am paid for what I do and you don’t need to give me a present.” The young woman stood with her presents in her hands and spoke directly to me: “If you hadn’t been here, she would have accepted the gift and she would have kept her mouth shut. … What kind of behavior is that? We offer her a gift and she refuses it. I’ve never seen such a thing—that’s not how things are done here; what did we do to her?” The frustrated students left the room. The trainer attempted to justify herself to me: “I’m sorry you had to see that. You see, it’s exasperating. We spend two days training and in the end they have the same reflexes. … What is she going to say when an administrative official invites her to a restaurant or promises her this or that if she closes her eyes on ballot stuffing?” The other trainer tried to explain how important this type of training is in his eyes: “You see, it’s a question of education. After a totalitarian regime, we don’t have a strong enough democratic political culture and we want to progress too quickly when, in fact, it takes time.” Training is thus not really about acquiring technical knowledge, but rather a more general conception of human relations, a type of individually internalized governmentality. It is possible to question whether this type of situation is truly an illustration of the students’ inability to understand new electoral norms. It reflects more the persistence of a social logic that consists in knowing the current norms and devising ways to get around them. It is the way in which these different knowledge systems mesh with previous knowledge and practices that determines what the trained individuals will do with what they have learned.

Training and Strategy of Influence Democracy promotion projects cannot merely be reduced to an imported phenomenon because each society has its own way of interpreting them. Influence is no longer necessarily wielded by gunfire, and attempts at imposing exogenous values can hardly be the result of brutal force from the outside. Local conditions must be ripe for new norms to be adapted, accepted, and reappropriated. The will to change a local reality is now fueled by different modernization theories and development approaches that consist of helping spread values held to be universal. Training is therefore seen as an educational and technology transfer with the aim of creating a new moral individual. The American foundation targets two segments of the population in particular: leaders and young people. IFES also runs summer camps bringing together young people from different countries. In all of the daily activities, the youths must vote, de-

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cide, and then sign a pledge to fulfill their commitments. Role-plays acting out the electoral process are organized. The apprentice democrats act out situations and play the roles of people at a polling station. The protagonists are supposed to internalize values and techniques through concrete fun activities before becoming future voters and observers. David Mikosz insists on the importance of role-playing: “For us, it’s a good test for evaluating our methods and our training strategy. We use students as feedback to see if we should change our strategy. Last year, Democracy Theater was a particular success.” IFES’s website posts testimonials to show the changes that took place. One student said, “Now, I am sure that I can do something to change the world around me. … We girls are spreading the message of democracy that we received here at camp. This probably sounds ambitious, but we have learned a lot, and we are going to do a lot to improve the quality of life for our people.” These experiences aim to change the relations young people have toward values: “For us it is about promoting human rights, equality between the sexes, civil society, and voluntarism.” These programs are supplemented by the distribution of civic education manuals in schools to develop interactive methods. The subjectification approach consists in thinking that bringing different individualities in contact will build a democratic environment. The wide variety of methods of working together and managing a team serve as a vehicle for a whole set of values by which to develop critical thinking and express one’s opinions publicly. Passivity is condemned and makes way for praising methods of participation, interaction, and individual initiative. All of these techniques apply to forms of deliberation, modes of assembly, and codes for public speaking. Noor Borbieva (2008), who analyzed similar IFES training seminars for Kyrgyz students, pointed out, “The civic program is based on the idea that students must come to their own conclusions.” Program activities nevertheless strive to change the values regarding gender roles and roles between the young and the old. All of these training techniques are nevertheless subject to interpretation and appropriation by local actors according to logics that often differ from those guiding the donors responsible for imparting them. Acting out resistance during a role-play and the story about the gifts are examples of a form of local reappropriation. Adopting the new antifraud system also caused a slew of controversies and rumors about this “technical instrument.” The Russian translation “markirovak” (marking) provoked unexpected reactions among the people. One Ayil Okmoti told me, “We are not sheep to be branded like that. … I don’t like this system, I find it humiliating.” Others regretted that there was no parliamentary debate before adopting the new system. Noor Borbieva (2008), however, pointed

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out that American aid agencies were careful to use invisible ink so that Kyrgyz would not feel like they had had their skin branded. Nevertheless, there were rumors that the product was harmful or even radioactive. Certain politicians deemed the system neocolonial. Samakov, a Kyrgyz parliamentary representative, told me, “I don’t like this method used in Africa, and I don’t understand why it is being used in Kyrgyzstan.” IFES took these reactions into account and issued communication campaigns showing the importance of using this antifraud device by insisting on the fact that many democratic countries had adopted it. David Mikosz defends IFES when people talk to him about these reservations: “We are merely responding to a request by the Kyrgyz government. The antifraud system (ink) was introduced in the wake of a Kyrgyz law, and we therefore supplied material which happens to be used in Indonesia as well as Belgium. We have rejected criticism that consists in telling us that we want to do the same thing here as we’ve done in Africa. On the contrary, we want to spread political techniques here that we use in developed countries.” Technology is therefore put forth as proof that the procedure is widespread and is used to gain acceptance for a technical device, as if it would not provoke public debate in democratic countries.5

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Eligibility: The Demokrat and Kyrgyzness The new electoral system has changed the procedures by which citizens choose those who can legitimately represent others in the different assemblies. Examining the elections in Togolok Moldo, it is time to broach a central issue in the Kyrgyz political order. The question: who is eligible to run for office? Throughout the campaign, there was a great deal of talk about the legitimacy of this or that person to stand in the forthcoming elections. The local authorities recorded a huge number of candidacies. The Ayil Okmotu Zamir, recently elected by direct suffrage, did not participate in the elections directly. He embodies the figure of the new local elected authority who is not very new. His profile matches the image conveyed on the national level through the Manas ideology and the new Kyrgyz identity. The candidate must justify affiliation with this new social norm. Zamir thus claimed to be a reluctant candidate, his hand being forced by the Aktalaa Rayon administration. He is part of a broader political network including local notables such as the former kolkhoz chairman, Sujunali Monolov. They embody the new Kyrgyz social norm and continuity of the system. On the village level, candidates must now mobilize voters. Family networks and the importance of tribal affiliation (uruk) count. Zamir, like Monolov, belongs to the Kaydulat, a lineage group that is part of a larger

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lineage identity structure (uruu), the Sayak, whose demographic weight is predominant in the region. Lineage solidarity is only one type of solidarity that is politically important. Kyrgyz political life is not merely a battle between tribes (Gullette 2010). Tribal affiliation is not associated to a clearly defined territory and tribal chiefs are not clearly identifiable either. Zamir is a figure incarnating the continuity of power, yet his authority is widely contested within the village. Despite his outward serenity, Zamir had a hard time hiding his anxiety in the face of the influence of his main detractor, Talapai Iskenderov. Iskenderov had his sights on becoming a municipal council member. This was the occasion to fight it out with the local authorities. He willingly defined himself as the only representative of the opposition: “I’m the demokrat, while the others continue to behave as in the past and cheat.” On the strength of their financial success, many small businessmen like Iskenderov throughout the country are eager to gain political influence. Iskenderov lost to Zamir by a small margin during the first municipal elections. Even though he has considerable family wealth, his position within the local political network is still weak. He regularly and vehemently condemns the mobilization of traditional tribal affiliations (uruu-uruk) in political battles. He wants to see real political parties with platforms emerge: “Putting forth one’s tribal affiliation belongs to politics of another age. People need to be judged by what they do and the platform they propose to the people. That is what a demokrat is.” Everyone has his own conception of what a demokrat is, but it is becoming the norm to stand for. Iskenderov has earned prestige by becoming one of the main providers of work. In exchange, he asked his employees to get involved in their boss’s political undertaking. Relations of clientelism have led to an unprecedented form of political competition. Eligibility is not fueled by ideological opposition between opponents. Candidates need to conform to the new Kyrgyz identity while being able to mobilize material resources that they must redistribute. Various forms of prodigality are means of expressing one’s political vision. Many candidates think they can demonstrate their democratic mindset through generosity. This leads to a type of inflation that becomes ostentatious during electoral campaigns. Such social exchanges make it possible to establish true differences between candidates. It is thus common in villages to witness battles between figures competing fiercely for the control of resources. Voters see candidates above all as powerful people capable of redistributing resources. They prefer personal contact with candidates and primarily place their trust in local people (zemliak). During the campaign, candidates seek out contact with their electorate that blends the cultural and political. After a brief political speech, the candidate usually steps aside and makes

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room for popular singers who have come to support their candidacy. One voter said, “We need to look candidates in the eye to see what they’ve done and most of all to see what they will be able to do for us.” The electorate therefore emphasizes criteria of visible influence and power. Tamir, a voter, explained to me, “He needs to be rich but must not keep his fortune all to himself. How else will he be able to help us?” It is common on election days to come across people talking about candidate campaign workers who hand out money. There is a general atmosphere of bargaining. Candidates reportedly offer phone cards for mobile phones; others hand out food, coal, or cases of vodka. However, buying voters is not enough to get elected because voter turnout does not boil down to the power of money. David Mikosz (IFES) told the following story: “A sad moment occurred in Talas recently when a young candidate began to outline their view of the future. The candidate was interrupted by an aksakal (village elder), who said, basically, just tell us what you will give us for your vote and we can go home and decide. The candidate was shocked and said that he was not going to try to buy a vote with cash or goods but based on ideas. At this, apparently a large number of people left the meeting. … This tradition is dangerously close to becoming a cultural norm.”6 He thus interprets a political life where everything has become open to bargaining. President Akayev himself adopted the internationals’ moral universe and, just before the 2005 elections, launched a new national program called “Clean the Country,” which included five points (clean up nature, the economy, public life, electoral life, and public health). Local NGOs have also adopted the international discourse. The leader of Koalitsia, Edil Baisalov, systematically equates corruption and clientelism in the media. Koalitsia even launched a hotline for citizens to report vote buying. Tolikan Ismailova’s NGO Citizens against Corruption has a relatively similar position. This line of thinking considers that anything can be bought because people often talk about an open market at election time. In May 2004, the results in Togolok Moldo did not bring any big surprises in an election where the stakes were relatively low. The citizens in Togolok Moldo came out to vote in large numbers and went to the polling station in a disciplined manner. During the day, each member of the electoral commission did his or her job conscientiously and the observers had no notable irregularities to report. The different candidates conducted campaigns in a completely new way for them: they had to compete to convince voters to vote for them. Outside, night was beginning to fall, and the atmosphere of expectation around the polling station went up a notch while waiting for the results. The crowd thickened; some prolonged the festive spirit by drinking vodka. The results were quickly announced inside the polling station, which was still closed off to the crowd. The elec-

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tion consolidated Zamir’s power even though one of his opponents, Iskenderov, was elected to the municipal council. Beyond the results, the electoral process was firmly in place and everyone agreed that there would be particularly palpable tension during the next legislative elections that were to take place the following year and of which the central issue would be whether to maintain the political order established by Askar Akayev.

Notes 1. According to results consulted through the Akhtalaa Rayon electoral commission, forty-two of forty-three ayil okmotu candidates fielded by the administration won the elections. 2. Two members of the electoral commission travel around with this ballot box so that the ill and handicapped can vote. 3. See Thomas M. Griffin (2004), Haiti Human Rights Investigation, Center for the Study of Human Rights, University of Miami School of Law, November, http://www.ijdh .org/2006/03/archive/haiti-human-rights-investigation-center-for-the-study-of-humanrights-university-of-miami-school-of-law/. 4. This system has already been put into use by IFES elsewhere, in particular in Georgia, to prevent what is called family voting and carousel voting. 5. IFES also lobbies for electronic voting machines (e-voting) worldwide. 6. Yahoo! discussion group started by David Mikosz, 2005.

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References Borbieva, Noor. 2008. “Development in the Kyrgyz Republic: Exchange, Communal Networks, and the Foreign Presence.” PhD diss., Harvard University. Carothers, Thomas. 2004. Critical Missions: Essays on Democracy Promotion. Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ferguson, James, and Akhil Gupta. 2002. “Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality.” American Ethnologist 29 (4): 981–1002. Gullette, David. 2002. “Tribalism in Kyrgyzstan Examined.” Central Asia and the Caucasus 2 (14). International Foundation for Electoral Systems. 2002. A Guide to Transparency in Election Administration. Washington DC: IFES. Jackson, Jeffrey T. 2005. The Globalizers: Development Workers in Action. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mosse, David. 2005. Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London: Pluto Press. Petric, Boris. 2012. Democracy@Large: NGO’s, Political Foundations, Think Tanks and International Organizations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wedel, Janine. 2001. Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe. New York: St. Martins Press.

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– Chapter 4 –

THE FALL OF THE COMMON HOUSE

_ In the countryside, when I see one of those huge houses being built that are popping up all over, I can’t help thinking that it is probably another one of those Kyrgyz that sweeps the Red Square in Moscow.

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—Kubatbek Djusubaliev Novelist

One morning in the wee hours, I stood in the Bishkek train station watching people leave for Russia. The concourse was teeming with travelers who were securing the closure of their oversized luggage with rolls of tape. Some were wrapping suitcases and travel bags in plastic wrap. On the platform, it was time for the last goodbyes for these Kyrgyz citizens, who were leaving to go work in Moscow for a few months. Outside, other travelers had opted to take small vans to the Russian towns of Sverdlovsk, Irkutsk, and Novossibirsk. The journey of these migrants circulating between Central Asia and Russia would be punctuated by numerous checkpoints. The validity of their tickets and their administrative documents would be conscientiously examined several times. Most of them are accustomed to this type of situation, where each border crossing requires codes to be mastered in order to face interactions with the checkpoint authorities. Where skill in the art of crossing borders is essential, these intense social exercises in negotiation are known to all and are accepted as inevitable. The atmosphere in the station reminded me of the unfortunate experience friends once related to me with a degree of fatalism. Tickets for a sleeping berth in hand, the couple was taking the train to Russia. After the train left, they saw that the berths reserved for them were occupied, having been sold by the conductor. They would therefore have to travel – 71 –

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sitting up in the suffocating heat for three days even though the woman was pregnant. The husband haggled at length with the conductor to get a sleeping berth. The second day, after giving his watch and his chain bracelet, they finally got one. Unfortunately, his wife had a miscarriage a couple of days later. However, most stories I hear are more fortunate. People tell about the glorious career paths of young people who left for Russia. Although the phenomenon is more common in the overpopulated south of the country, it also exists in the north. In Togolok Moldo, people talk in particular about the fate of the Manbetovs’ neighbor, who made a fortune selling jeans made in China on the market in Novossibirsk.1 Kyrgyz villages have been hard hit by rural exodus. Some people leave for the capital, and others prefer to go abroad. There are reportedly close to a million Kyrgyz,2 almost a quarter of the population, living and working permanently or temporarily in Russia and Kazakhstan. Mobility has become a social strategy, another facet of a general logic of resource appropriation. These new social experiences are valued by the government as well as a majority of the general public. The authorities have simplified administrative procedures to facilitate this mobility, and many Kyrgyz view these transitory experiences as positive. The migrant proves his ability to bounce back in the face of adversity to be better integrated in his society. The migratory experience is thus conceived as a circular movement where the individual essentially continues to picture his life in Kyrgyzstan. It is a kind of rite of passage in a life story where the migrant proves his ability to overcome adversity and accumulate resources. Migrants work mostly in big Russian cities in a hostile context. The weight of bureaucracy, through its various forms of checks, bans, and behavior, adds to this general atmosphere of hostility. On my several brief visits to Moscow since 2000, I have noticed a strong Central Asian presence in the Russian capital. I decided to spend ten days there in November 2009 to talk with some of these migrants, choosing one of the symbolic places of this new migration. Kazan Station is where trains arrive from Central Asia and where it is easy to meet Kyrgyz who have come to seek a better life in Russia. The scale of Central Asian migration is instantly palpable in the capital. Central Asians are particularly visible in public space because they occupy the most menial jobs (street sweepers, laborers, and sandwich sellers). In the subway, countless ads stuck all over the walls offer to regularize residence registration3 procedures (registratsia) for undocumented migrants or promise them jobs with attractive salaries. A singular atmosphere reigns in the subway station of Kazan Station. I came across several police brigades checking people’s identification papers. In one of the corridors I came across a police

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station complete with a cell in which several young Central Asians were crammed behind bars. In the station, a crowd was waiting in front of a huge information board. The announcement of the arrival of a train from Bishkek triggered an impressive movement of the crowd toward the platform. These men and women had come to wait for a cousin, a friend, or an acquaintance. The train arrived completely filled with weary travelers after three days and four nights of crossing the Kazak steppe and southern Russia. The train took a long time to unload due to the huge amounts of luggage the passengers were carrying. Porters unloaded a multitude of goods and had a hard time making their way through the crowds with their unwieldy bundles. Two young men were watching the almost festive unloading of the train and were intrigued by my presence. I struck up a conversation with them. Edil and Adil said they often came to the station on Thursdays to watch the train arrive. They knew they would run into acquaintances there and simply enjoyed taking in the atmosphere. They shook hands with a few people and then left the platform with me. These two young men had been working in restaurants for several years and have decided to stay in Russia for the moment. Before meeting a few of these migrants, a little historical perspective will be helpful to understand these unprecedented movements. During the Soviet era, the state’s ambition was to control not only the flow of goods and ideas but also of people. The circulation of people was strictly regulated and curbed by the bureaucracy. The gradual closing of the Soviet space and forced sedentarization of the nomadic population, for instance, led the Kyrgyz to completely alter their way of circulating and the economic relations that arose from it. Ties with Western China, for instance, gradually eroded to the benefit of the Soviet republics. Since independence, liberalization has led to new types of circulation that are no longer controlled by the state. The emergence of these new population flows corresponds to strategies for existing in the new social context.

The Soviet Regime or the Ambition to Establish Absolute Control over Human Flows During the Soviet era, the authorities frequently referred to friendship among peoples (Druzhba narodov) to tout the exemplary peaceful cohabitation of the different peoples making up the Soviet Union. The idea of multicultural cohabitation was based on the existence of specific territories corresponding to the dominant national culture of each place rather

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than the idea of a multicultural society. The very idea of a multicultural society was even widely combated ideologically via criticism directed at American cosmopolitism. The authorities controlled the population’s movements and migrations within each republic, as well as between republics and outside of the union. One’s place of residence,4 as well as the possibility of moving or traveling, was closely supervised by the administration. A change of residence was mainly associated with public imperatives and could rarely be motivated by personal life choices. Settling European populations in Central Asia was a strong priority for the Soviet authorities, and the Kyrgyz Republic experienced major population changes with the massive arrival of people from the western part of the Soviet Union throughout the twentieth century5 to modernize and administrate the small republic. A large contingent of people (Koreans, Germans) punished by Stalin for alleged sedition and fraternizing with the enemy during the Second World War were also sent to the Kyrgyz Republic. The European populations were concentrated in towns in Kyrgyzstan and sometimes even made up a large majority of the population. For many years, the cohabitation of the two groups thus reflected a distinction between urban and rural inhabitants. Conversely, few Kyrgyz were allowed to settle in other parts of the USSR. Certain Kyrgyz elites indeed had access to a few university towns, but, in general, they returned to their republic to pursue their careers. In Russia, multinational cohabitation was only realized through the temporary presence of these elites who came to study for a time or was limited to sporadic visits of delegations or Central Asian tourist groups. Kyrgyz experienced cohabitation with other populations outside of their republic during their studies and military service. The system was very attentive to the circulation of people. Given the immense space to administrate, the authorities controlled communication routes and hubs (airports, harbors, roads) but also all forms of citizens’ movements by issuing various permits. A number of documents were required in order to move about. State control was omnipresent, materialized in particular by numerous police checkpoints set up at city limits. Furthermore, the Soviet government considerably limited travel for its citizens outside the country. The Soviet passport, symbolizing the privilege to travel, was thus reserved for a tiny minority of elites. It was a temporary document that the citizen had to give back to the administration on his return. A former Kyrgyz senior government official remembered, “I had the red passport. … I went to Paris and I remember I was told that you even had to pay to use the restrooms in capitalist countries. I went and I was shocked that you really did have to pay, but deep inside, I could compare the restrooms with ours and see the difference in cleanliness. This an-

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ecdote is a way of telling you that I realized at that moment that we were all being kept in a kind of general lie about the Western world and about the so-called perfection of our system.” Few Kyrgyz had this privilege, and traveling, for many, was a determining social experience in the perception they had of their society. Another senior Kyrgyz official told me, “I traveled a lot in the 1980s and each time I came back completely depressed. We were a great nation, we could send men into space and produce ultrasophisticated weapons, we mastered nuclear power to produce electricity for our industries … and on the other hand, unlike the West, we were incapable of supplying many ordinary staple goods to a large part of the population.” Few foreigners were allowed to travel freely in the USSR. This situation thus considerably limited the possibility for inhabitants to form ties beyond their borders. It is obvious today that top athletes, politicians, and artists, who had the privilege to travel, benefited greatly after the collapse of the USSR from the international social ties they had previously established. Within the Soviet Union, mobility was encouraged for economic and political reasons. Citizens traveled individually on missions for their enterprise, their kolkhoz, or their institution (komandirovka). However, traveling for personal reasons was much more difficult and was subject to control through the use of another administrative document, the internal passport (vnutrini pasport). This document was required of any citizen wanting to travel but also to determine his place of residence. In the Soviet Kyrgyz Republic, the issuing of this passport corresponded to a distinction between rural and urban inhabitants. Most of the rural population did not possess such a document, thereby considerably limiting their movements apart from organized trips and missions for certain local leaders. Under this system, one’s place of residence was not a personal choice. It depended on one’s place of birth and, throughout one’s life, was determined by logics of the administration that issued a residence permit (propiska), and contributed to establishing individuals’ personal and professional career paths. At the end of the 1980s, Kyrgyz society was confronted with deep sociological change. Population growth led to rampant urbanization. The system had an increasingly hard time offering its citizens opportunities and orienting their lives. This led to serious conflicts over access to housing, work, education, and land tenure.6 The deadlocked system pushed part of the population to choose illegal strategies by settling in the outskirts of big towns to find makeshift housing and illegal work. Despite the weight of administrative control, Soviet society was rife with practices aimed at getting around the system’s very restrictive norms in all areas. A whole array of life skills involved devising social practices by which to avoid the constraints weighing on individuals so they could make per-

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sonal choices and gain access to resources. These practices affected the workings of the administration and were exemplified, for instance, by the illicit obtainment of certain permits to travel, to circulate, or to change residence. It became increasingly common to buy and sell mobility in the form of a propiska (permit). With the liberalization of society since proclamation of perestroika, a whole set of conflicts came out in the open. In the Kyrgyz Republic, a movement called Demokraticekoje Dvizhenije Kirgizstana strove to defend housing rights for Kyrgyz students. The movement took on an ethnic connotation. The rural and essentially Kyrgyz population was in conflict with the urban European (Russian, Ukrainian, etc.) population. The demands pitted the native population (korennoe naselenje) against the nonnative population (prijezhije). Kyrgyz felt they were victims of injustice, particularly in relation to European transplants.

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Askar Akayev’s Common House Ideology and Emigration of the Russian-Speaking Population When the Kyrgyz Republic became independent, a strong current of nationalism was predominant throughout all of the former USSR. After independence, Akayev liberalized the system and launched a vast policy of granting passports to the entire population. His political discourse alternately blew hot and cold toward citizens of different nationalities. President Akayev was quickly confronted with the departure of part of the urban Russian-speaking population. As mobility had become a free choice, Kyrgyzification incited many Europeans to leave the country. All the same, the Kyrgyz president adopted a new slogan that was particularly addressed to citizens of other nationalities: “Kyrgyzstan is our common house.” In spite of this discourse of appeasement toward non-Kyrgyz, an overwhelming majority of them chose to leave the country permanently. Independence, adopting Kyrgyz as the official language, and the new nationalist rhetoric pushed them to leave, refusing the prospect of being confined to the status of second-class citizens. Although the first wave of migration concerned the urban European population, the phenomenon spread quickly. The move toward freedom of circulation was materialized through the widespread issuing of passports for traveling. Certain people left the country permanently, while others developed considerable shuttle trade. At the airport, flights for Russia, Turkey, India, the United Arab Emirates, and then later for China were packed with these Chelnoki 7 easily recognizable by their big bundles crammed into striped plastic zip-top bags.

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Rural Exodus and Urban Sprawl Lack of work and the possibility of choosing one’s fate more freely has led to a general rural exodus. Even though the propiska system is still in effect, it has become more flexible and, most of all, the document has become the object of market transactions in a system where administrative products (certificates and residence permits) are increasingly openly negotiated for baksheesh (bribes). Bakit, one of the Manbetov family sons, had a hard time settling in Bishkek. He said, “My sister lives in Kant (about 30 miles from Bishkek). At first, I registered at her address while working in Bishkek, and then I rented an apartment by buying a propiska.” Djildiz is a nurse from the Naryn valley. She told me, “I used to work in a hospital in Naryn where we weren’t being paid anymore and there were fewer and fewer patients. I decided to leave. I got my propiska by officially registering at my sister’s, who has an apartment in Bishkek. … That allows me to work in a hospital in the capital and actually to live in an apartment that I rent under the table.” In the capital, issuing this document has become a lucrative business for government officials in charge of it. Worker hostels and universities have become popular places for negotiating the purchase of a propiska for any citizen wanting to settle in town. Some live in the capital illegally and are at the mercy of police checks. Brigades scour the streets in the capital at night looking for illegal migrants. Offenders are not afraid of being sent back home but, rather, worry about how expensive the fine will be. Most of the time, they prefer paying a “babki”8 to be allowed to go free. Manas, an illegal migrant told me, “When you get caught, you mustn’t panic and try to flee. You instead start in on a long discussion with the police officer. You talk about your life and your problems. He tells you about his obligations, and it all ends in a compromise; you give him money so he lets you go.” These illegal migrants swell the ranks of day laborers on the markets in Bishkek. They often live in the Kara Jygach neighborhood, which is crowded with families who have come looking for work. They live in this shantytown district that has developed little by little on the outskirts of the city near the Dordoy market, which is another major labor predator.

From Migration to Increased Kyrgyz Mobility Internal mobility is no longer enough because Kyrgyz are also affected by problems of unemployment and resource shortages. On the other hand, in the 2000s, the economies of neighboring Russia and Kazakhstan were booming and attracted labor in great numbers. Among candidates for the

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new El Dorado, certain young people were hoping to cut ties permanently with traditional Kyrgyz society. They work in restaurants and cafés in Moscow and talk about their hopes for individual freedom. This is particularly true of young women. I met a waitress in a Moscow restaurant whose appearance made me think she was from Central Asia despite the rather Russian name on her nametag. I spoke to Natalia in Kyrgyz. Startled, she answered me curtly in Russian. Later she explained, “I’m sorry about earlier, but when I arrived here I decided to change my first name to fit in better. I hate speaking Kyrgyz here, I’d rather speak Russian. … I have cut all ties with my country and I no longer have much contact with my family. That’s the way it is, but I wanted to escape from the life that was all planned out for me where I would have had to take care of everyone and would have been watched like a hawk by my future in-laws. Here it’s a big city, I feel free. I can work and be independent. I’m going to have a Russian passport soon and now my life is here even though I love my country.” Many young people work in restaurants. I met another waiter who also had a Russian first name. Platon told me, “In Kyrgyzstan, my name was Ruslan. All of that is history because now I am Platon. I’m a new person and I hope to succeed in my new life in Russian society. … I’m interested in modern things, video games and music. I don’t want to spend my time pleasing others by doing things that I don’t care about, like all of those festivities that create mutual obligations.” We discussed his integration, and I asked him how he reacts when people ask where he is from. He admitted, “I prefer to lie; I say that I’m Buryat, and that’s accepted better because they aren’t Muslim. For Russians, a Kyrgyz is a Muslim who is inevitably an Islamist and a terrorist. So all of that scares them right off the bat.” Thus some young people settling in Russia want to hide their origins because they perceive them as an obstacle to integration. Others choose Russia for purely economic reasons. Askar, a taxi driver from the Fergana valley, left Central Asia permanently at the age of fifty and told me, “I’ll never set foot there again. We were taken in by nationalist rhetoric and I admit that I lapped it up and now what are we going to do with our national pride? We have nothing to eat. Look at Karimov: he locked up his population and see all the Uzbeks here. Akayev was always smiling in the big posters, praising his common house with democracy and liberalism. … Our country is buckling under debt, completely ruined, it’s a total fiasco, it’s a hold-up against its citizens. Here, I can work and live in peace without having to continually pledge allegiance to the system.” However, many migrants maintain close ties with Kyrgyzstan. Their lives in Russia are even completely organized in relation to their home

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The Fall of the Common House | 79

country. Edil and Adil, whom I met at Kazan Station, for example, speak easily of their dual allegiance to Russian and Kyrgyz society. They come from a village in the region of Osh. They used to live with their parents in a former tobacco kolkhoz. The collective farm closed down after privatization. Edil’s parents had no work and decided to leave for Moscow. Since 2004, they have spent several months per year in the Russian capital. The father works in construction, while his wife is a cleaning woman. Edil finished school last year, and his parents decided to settle in Moscow, where they rent an apartment. Edil and Adil both work in fast food restaurants. Adil said, “We don’t want to stay here forever; we’re making money and one day we will return. We prefer living in Kyrgyzstan even if there are tons of great things in this big city. We live well here, and we earn 15,000 rubles ($480) a month.” They return to Kyrgyzstan often and their monthly wages are high for Kyrgyz. It makes projects back home possible. Edil said, “With the money people earn, some go back to Kyrgyzstan. They have houses built, others invest in herds, others buy cars and become taxi drivers, some buy a store or an apartment in town.” This situation of adaptation is completely integrated in a new way of life with its own seasonal transhumances. Living in Russia is considered a stage in life or a moment in the year. This period of life is often part of a global family strategy. Edil explained, “Most Kyrgyz like us spend a couple of months here, then go back home. In any case, residence registration (registratsia) has to be renewed every three months. And plus, it is better to spend the summer in Kyrgyzstan; that is when the weddings and holidays are. We will stay for a few years, and then we will go back.” Circular mobility (Tarrius 2002) is thus increasing between Russian towns and former Soviet republics. A whole set of citizens are developing a new relation to space and identity in tune with the seasons. Edil’s mother works as a cleaning woman in three different places for a monthly salary of 20,000 rubles ($640). She explained, “I don’t speak Russian well, and my interaction with the local population is very limited. If I spoke Russian better, I could be a saleswoman and earn more. Now, I come downtown to work and then I go back to my apartment, which is in an outer suburb. … I prefer walking to work even if I have to walk for an hour and a half because at least that way I see the beauty of the city. I often call back home, and we send money to my husband’s mother. With part of the money we buy livestock because in two years we want to return to Kyrgyzstan.” Working conditions are harsh. These women can work more than forty hours in a row. Many of them work in small stands that are open twenty-four hours a day. Jamila told me, “I am lucky to have this job because I speak Russian well. … It takes me three hours by subway and bus to get to work. So I prefer to put in my forty hours all at once, af-

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terwards I have a three-day break, but I am not going to be able to do that much longer because it’s complicated for my family life.” Most migrants are men and work essentially in construction, services, and on the markets. This new working population is employed in sectors that have reputations for being difficult and dangerous, in jobs that Russians do not want to do. In the last few years, the Kyrgyz, who sweep the streets, build new buildings, and work as porters on the markets, have become the new proletariat in Russian society, along with Uzbeks and Tajiks. The migration experience often enters into collective strategies and solidarity networks. In the north of Moscow, I met Yussup, who is in charge of maintenance in a building. Yussup is part of a group of about a hundred Kyrgyz. Their employer, the municipal maintenance authority (JEK), houses them in an old school declared unfit for habitation after a fire. Yussup confided: “We are all ‘Oshskis.’9 We used to live in basements, and I tell you there are a lot of migrants like us in Moscow who still live crammed in basements. Now we live in this dormitory. We are happy, it is heated.” Migrants accept terrible living conditions because their mind is set mainly on returning home. This circular migration leads to very complex family situations. This man in his forties, for instance, has four brothers, two of whom also live in Russia in the towns of Chita and Novossibirsk. Another brother lives in Bishkek and takes care of raising his children, while the last brother has stayed in Osh with their parents. Yussup has been living in Moscow for four years. He works as a janitor for luxury apartment buildings. He used to be a village schoolteacher. At first, he moved to Bishkek because he did not earn enough to feed his family: “I worked at the bazaar where I earned more money. I worked for Turks, but with $100 a month, I still couldn’t make ends meet, so I decided to leave for Russia.” He came to Russia with his wife, who works as a cleaning woman. Their children stayed back in Bishkek in an apartment that Yussup managed to buy with his savings. They work in Moscow for nine months out of the year. He told me, “We don’t mix with Russians, they’re scared of us and we’re scared of them. It’s because of the Tajiks and Uzbeks that people associate us with thieves; they are the ones who sell drugs and steal.” In Kyrgyzstan, the experience of these laborers, called migranti (migrants), is valued. Many success stories are told over and over, and the myth of striking it rich is fueled by those who regularly come back flaunting a superior standard of living. They reportedly inject more than a billion dollars a year into the Kyrgyz economy.10 All year long, they send money orders through new Western Union–type companies (Migom, Anelik). Such circulation is not only visible through the arrival of new objects. The migrants return with new skills and new ways of doing things. The Russian experience allows them to perfect their knowledge of Russian

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and sometimes learn a trade. Back home, these former migrants, having acquired experience in construction work in Russia, for example, publish newspaper ads offering to do Evro remont (European-style work). This is also reflected in the development of a new style of rural architecture. A mason from At-Bashi explained to me, “I went to work in Russia for a year, and now I’ve started my own little business in Bishkek, and I offer European-style construction work for rich Kyrgyz in the capital who want the same houses as their new Russian friends.” A large part of the resources accumulated are invested in building houses. My friend, the Kyrgyz author Djusubaliev, has confirmed how far-reaching the phenomenon is: “In the countryside, when I see one of those huge houses being built that are popping up all over, I can’t help thinking that it is probably another one of those Kyrgyz that sweeps the Red Square in Moscow.” These houses, which are never entirely finished, are the symbol of one of the functions of migration: to show one’s ability to start a home. These migratory flows have become more and more organized. Nurlan from Naryn works in Moscow; he has created a small brigade of five people from his region: “I vouch for my brigade to my employer. I am more or less the leader of my group, and I rely on acquaintances in my village to bring people here. The money pays the rent, and I send the rest to my family.” Others reinvest in the rural economy by trying to build up a herd, but money is mainly invested in small retail businesses. They open a shop or a market stand. Some buy apartments in Osh or in Bishkek. Others return to Kyrgyzstan with imported cars that members of their families use as taxis. According to Monsutti (2007) these migratory experiences are like a rite of passage for young men who need to show their ability to capture resources to get married and start a home. The less glowing experiences are usually hidden. Some leave seeking adventure and take great risks. Women can be confronted with human trafficking and men with near slavery-like situations. Askar told his unfortunate story in a brochure published by USAID: “I finished studying mechanics in Bishkek, then I found myself unemployed and married with two children. After losing my job, I answered an ad to go work in Russia, supposedly for $1,200 a month. I left with twenty-seven people for Yakutia to work in appalling conditions. We had just about finished the job when we were arrested and sent back home with no money, I had loans I had to pay back at home and plus I was sick.” Precarious situations in Russian society are not only limited to illegal immigrants. Kyrgyz workers in Russia mention new unexpected problems arising during their stays, which end up being longer than originally intended. One person told me, “It is terrible for us when one of our people dies. The cost of shipping the body back to Kyrgyzstan is pro-

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hibitive [$1,500]. In the end, some work themselves to death on Russian construction sites and the money they make is not even enough to ship their body home. It’s absurd.” Migrants have set up an informal system of solidarity to pay for the costs of this final voyage. The government has not protested against the working conditions of its migrants; rather, it has merely proposed to create a national support fund for its new nomads needing to bring their dead back home. International organizations promote these forms of circulation. This “globalization from below” (Portes 1997) has even become a primary value. A number of programs simply attempt to deny the inherent risks in this extensive mobility, claiming it just needs to be better managed. Human exploitation and personal failure are merely imperfections in the new globalized social architecture. By improving legislation, spreading information, and developing hotlines and information centers,11 these organizations hope to limit such unfortunate experiences.

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The Russian Perspective: Gastarbeiter Positive images and economic and political advantages tend to mask the problems. In 2008, there were apparently more than a hundred murders with racist connotations against the Central Asian population in Russia. The Kyrgyz general public remains indifferent to these back-page news items, which have prompted no indignation among them or any virulent reaction on the part of the Kyrgyz government. For their part, the Russian judicial system and police usually do not recognize the racist nature of the murders and classify them as mere brawls that ended badly. Beyond crimes, daily living conditions have become difficult to bear. I met up with an Uzbek friend, Ulugbek, in Moscow. He had left Uzbekistan because there was no work, and he explained his life in Moscow to me: “At least here, I have a job in advertising. Work is not a problem, but I won’t stay because life here is becoming a living hell. Since 2000, with the war in Chechnya and with my face, the police always stop me. I never take the subway; I’m scared with my Asian-looking face, and here they can’t tell the difference between a Chechen and me. Police stares are hard to handle, but so are those from people wondering what I have in my bag.” Ulugbek has moved on and now lives in England. One of my former Uzbek students lives in Moscow today. Timur was a brilliant student who was at the best university in Tashkent before finishing his degrees in Paris and London. He now works for a multinational finance company and told me, “I never tell women I’m Uzbek because that can be a problem. So I’ve invented a French background for myself; I have people call me Jean, and

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I explain that I have complicated origins coming from the Soviet Union. Speaking several languages as I do, it’s believable, it sounds good, and it makes things a whole lot easier for me.” Migrating to Russia is a risky adventure and integration is perceived as a challenge. Social status, whatever the social milieu, is apparently unstable. Yussup told me, “We live in difficult conditions because some do not know their rights and are taken advantage of. They are told they are going to be paid 15,000 [rubles] and in the end they are paid 7,000 and they don’t dare say anything.” In Moscow, in an atmosphere where xenophobic acts are feared, I have often come across workers in the evening leaving their work sites in groups; they would rather walk a long way than risk taking the subway. They live in fear, and some live in harsh conditions and leave with physical handicaps, but legends of success help keep them going. The majority of Russians have a poor image of this population, which in fact they do not know well at all. Stereotypes fuel everyday racism. In general discussions, a link of cause and effect is made between their presence and problems in Russian society. Different terms are used to stigmatize this group. The press and media call them “gastarbaiteri,”12 emphasizing the fact that their presence is temporary and necessary for the Russian economy. Much more pejorative nicknames are used as well. Central Asian and Caucasian populations are indiscriminately called Chorni (blacks) (Roman 2002), and are considered dirty and uneducated—that is to say, inferior.13 This stigmatization highlights phenotypical traits (color) while also implicitly associating a religious dimension (Islam), which is problematic in an Islamophobic climate. The term asiati stresses another phenotypical trait to underline a racial opposition in relation to the European population. The religious dimension is in that case secondary. However, these asiati are readily compared to ants because they have grown in numbers. They are said to reproduce quickly, unlike Russians, who do not have enough children. They are therefore seen as a threat to social order. Some speak of basmatchi14 to insist on their having deviant behaviors. This cultural expression is used to naturalize them as inveterate bandits. It is thus an implacable argument for showing that a strong correlation exists between the rise in criminality and their presence. Yussup explained, “People don’t know us. When they see us sweeping the streets, they think we are poor and uncultivated, whereas many of us are schoolteachers, people with a high level of education, and we have our own culture. Anyway, we don’t care because we don’t want to be integrated here—we want to return home—and we despise them, too.” In Russian public opinion, these migrants make up a homogenous group, but for the migrants it is important to be identified by their national origin. Kyrgyz also insist on being identified according to their re-

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gion. All of these migrants adopt the same logic of ostracism that exists in Russian society by accusing the other. Chinguiz told me, “Here, it is not us Kyrgyz who cause problems; Uzbeks and Tajiks are the ones who draw attention to themselves. They are very aggressive. They drink and take drugs or are Islamists and incite people on the markets. Because of them we are victims of racism by Russians who can’t tell us apart.” A young man from Bishkek explained, “The Kyrgyz who cause problems in Moscow are often juzhane (southerners), because they are more traditional. We have always been close to Russians and it is easier for us to adapt; we are not as Islamic as juzhane.” Migrants have to deal with almost generalized hostility, as well as radical movements, which the media indiscriminately call “skinheads,” that organize manhunts on a regular basis. In December 2008, the decapitated head of a Tajik was found in a garbage can in the center of Moscow after an unknown racist group had sent a threatening letter to an NGO fighting for migrants’ rights. The letter also contained a threat against members of the association. Russian citizens working for such associations are often threatened. Some of them have even been assassinated for their civic activism or their public position as experts. In Russian public life, the immigrant issue has become an omnipresent topic of discussion. Politicians play on people’s fear and mobilize nationalist rhetoric. State Duma members Rogozin and Zhirinovsky denounce the presence of these migrant populations, whom they claim are jeopardizing the very existence of the white, Slavic, and orthodox Russian population. They regularly propose deporting them en masse. Others adopt a more nuanced line of argument and call on the science of statistics to handle the “problem” politically. Pseudoscientific experts build statistical tools and talk about the need to set a tolerance threshold.15 Certain Duma members have suggested adopting a law to limit their number to four million, whereas there are reportedly more than five million undocumented migrants. Russian authorities, for their part, conscious of the need to reestablish the country’s demographic balance, have made it easier to regularize the status of a certain number of foreign workers. The government launched a widespread naturalization policy. Administrative authorities apparently make a selection among foreigners according to the reputation of each nationality. Kyrgyz are reportedly viewed with favor and enjoy preferential treatment, whereas Uzbeks, who are not allowed to have dual citizenship, are seemingly penalized. Kambar Pusurov, a representative of the Kyrgyz community in Chelyabinsk, explained, “In Russia, there are a lot of foreigners who try to buy Kyrgyz nationality. Kyrgyz have a pretty good reputation, unlike other populations. Since 1 January 2007, Russia has made

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it easier to gain citizenship and has forbidden foreigners to work illegally on the markets. So people now talk about the trafficking of Kyrgyz passports in Russia. A lot of Caucasians thus buy Kyrgyz passports to try and get Russian citizenship more easily.” This is another indicator of the importance of documents and administrative relations in cultural processes. After independence, many families wanted to get rid of the Soviet suffix to their names (-ov) and participated in a trend of using a traditional Kyrgyz form where a child uses his father’s first name. This poses administrative problems for producing identification documents in Russia. Many of these children, who now live in Russia, are going through the opposite administrative process16 in order to Russianize their names again.

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The Political Weight of Remittances in Kyrgyzstan Migrants continue to play a political role because they still vote in their country. Omurek Tekebayev, the former president of the Kyrgyz Parliament and one of the leaders of the opposition against President Bakiyev, told me in 2007, “I have a strategy for winning the next elections. We need to reclaim the country from abroad. I have opened a representation office in Washington, and we need to have a specific policy for our migrants. In Moscow, we are going to organize political campaigns for all of our migrants. We might win the election through Russia.” Political parties are thus paying attention to these voters. A former migrant, Muktar Omurakunov wants to create a party for exiles called Zamandash (Contemporaries) to federate all of the Kyrgyz working in Russia. Yussup, Edil, and Adil voted in the last presidential election. Yussup said, “There was a bus that was supposed to come get us to bring us to vote. We were given instructions, but, anyway, we support our president Bakiyev who is from the south like us.” A diaspora phenomenon is taking place, and this population is taking on political importance in Russia as well as in Kyrgyzstan. Close to two hundred thousand Kyrgyz have apparently opted for Russian citizenship. In the long run, this phenomenon could put Kyrgyzstan in a complicated situation in a Russian political context in which a new doctrine states that Russia intends to wield its influence over all the territories where its citizens live. I began this chapter by evoking the foundational experience of crossing borders as a unique relation in an increasingly globalized world. A certain number of characteristic social relations come together there. Part of the population is completely unaffected by it: beyond national affiliations, citizens who have diplomatic immunity are not confronted with this type of situation. This is true not only of diplomats, but also of government rep-

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resentatives and members of certain NGOs, international organizations, and businessmen—in short, a transnational elite that knows how to rely on inter-state cooperation to avoid a whole array of very restrictive rules that organize their circulation. Paradoxically, political corps from various countries that are at the origin of these different forms of procedures are exempt from them.

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Notes 1. After several years spent intermittently in Russia, Ruslan eventually returned and settled in the Kyrgyz capital. 2. “Central Asia: Migrants and the Economic Crisis,” International Crisis Group Asia Report no. 183, January 2010. 3. Place of residence is not chosen freely in Russia. Every foreigner must be registered within three days. 4. An administrative document of residence, a propiska, was required to prove one’s place of residence. 5. Part of the population fled to China and Afghanistan when the Soviets came to power. 6. The country experienced interethnic conflict in Osh, pitting Uzbeks against Kyrgyz. 7. This is the term for shuttle traders in all of the post-Soviet space. 8. Baksheesh (bribe). 9. From the city of Osh. 10. According to the committee of migrations, this represents more than 25 percent of the Kyrgyz GDP ($285 million in 2004, $481 million in 2005, $730 million in 2006, $1230 million in 2007, and $1200 million in 2008). 11. USAID publishes a bulletin on migration in Kyrgyzstan. See Migratsioni bulletin no. 2, 2008. 12. Borrowed from German, a term meaning “guest worker.” 13. The vocabulary is very rich (chernomazyi, chernojopy, churka, etc.). 14. This was the name the Red Army gave to groups of insurgents who refused to recognize Soviet authority. 15. See the writings of Konstantin Domodankovski, http://migrant.ru. 16. For example, Ulugbek’s daughter will be called “Ulugbek Kizi”; his son, “Ulugbek Ulu.” See “Kyrgyzstan: The Trend of Russianizing Family Names of Ethnic Kyrgyzs Living in Russia” [in Russian]. Fergana, 29 February 2008, www.fergana.ru.

References Bojkov, Vladimir J. 2007. Socialni Aspekti Migratsi Naselenie. Sociologiceskije 12: 284. Dubova, Natalia A., ed. 2006. Gastarbeiterstvo: Faktory Vytalkivania, Pritazhenia, [Gastarbaier: Factors of Repulsion and Attraction]. Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. Glick Schiller, Nina, Linda Basch, and Cristina Szanton Blanc. 1995. “From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration.” Anthropological Quarterly 68: 48–63.

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Humphrey, Caroline. 2001. “Inequality and Exclusion: A Russian Case Study of Emotion in Politics.” Anthropological Theory 1 (3): 335. Korobkov, Andrei V. 2007. “Migration Trends in Central Eurasia: Politics Versus Economics.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 40 (2): 169–89. Monsutti, Alessandro. 2007. “Migration as a Rite of Passage: Young Afghans Building Masculinity and Adulthood in Iran.” Iranian Studies 40 (2): 167– 85. Portes, Alejandro. 1997. Globalization from Below: The Rise of Transnational Communities. Princeton: Princeton University. Reeves, Madeleine. 2011. Movement, Power and Place in Central Asia and Beyond: Contested Trajectories. London: Routledge. Roman, Meredith L. 2002. “Making Caucasians Black: Moscow Since the Fall of Communism and the Racialization of Non-Russians.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 2: 1–27. Schnirelman, Viktor. 2011. “Le Retour du Racisme Scientifique ou Comment les Experts Inspirent la Xénophobie dans la Russie Contemporaine.” In Elena Filippova and Boris Petric, eds., Panorama de l’Anthropologie Contemporaine Russe. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011. Tarrius, Alain. 2007. La Remontée des Sud: Afghans et Marocains en Europe Méridionale. Paris: L’Aube. ———. 2002. La Mondialisation par le Bas. Paris: Balland.

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– Chapter 5 –

THE BAZAAR: SYMBOL OF A SOCIETY OF TRADERS

_ When you see all of these street vendors, you understand you are in a country where almost everything is for sale, even our heritage, since for the rest we no longer produce anything. Everything comes from China. .

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—Baka Street vendor

Chui Avenue in Bishkek, where people come to stroll on weekends, is lined with a wide variety of shops. On the side streets there are also karaoke cafés, art vendors, and a few stands selling drinks and cigarettes. Babushkas sell flowers and raspberries picked in their gardens to supplement their pensions. Itinerant photographers look for tourists wanting to immortalize their trip to the capital. A large segment of the population has adapted to the new economy by becoming merchants. While filming a documentary in July 2005,1 we had an unexpected encounter. Our head cameraman had forgotten a filter for his camera, so we set off in search of the uncommon object. Someone in a camera shop told me to go see an old man selling cigarettes near Ala-Too square. The old man seemed not at all surprised when we arrived. To our amazement, he claimed he could help us, but asked us first to come sit down on a nearby bench. For an hour, we took part in a subtle game of questions and answers in Russian on the history of cinema. He finally explained: “You see the building right behind you. Well, I used to be the director of it. It was the Technology Museum; that’s why I enjoyed asking you all of those questions. … Today nobody cares about progress and science. The museum closed down. Come have a look at what has become of the collection.” He led us to the basement, where we discovered hundreds of old – 88 –

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transistor radios, cameras, televisions, record players, and optical equipment. All of the pieces, symbolizing the advent of Soviet technology, had suddenly been cast aside. We spent a good part of the afternoon hunting for a filter for the pleasure of prolonging the old man’s stories and delving into the material memory of a bygone era. The museum had closed, and its former director, who was receiving a ridiculously small pension, was now forced to sell cigarettes in the street. The old man confided, “When you see all of these street vendors, you understand you are in a country where almost everything is for sale, even our heritage, since for the rest we no longer produce anything. Everything comes from China.” A society has evolved in which the market has taken on a particular form. In twenty years, the Kyrgyz capital has literally been transformed. It looks like other Soviet cities, with a rational urban layout, crisscrossed by a grid of long streets stretching from the foot of a mountain range toward the base of the Chui valley. In 1996, during my first visit, Bishkek was a city made up of symbols of the Soviet political order. In the center, a statue of Lenin stood in the vast Red Square. Imposing buildings lined the square on either side: the History Museum exhibiting the epic of the Kyrgyz people in the great fable of the Soviet people, the Communist Party’s Central Committee, and the People’s Assembly. At that time, the population was mainly “European,” as they say there, with a Kyrgyz minority. The mix of very different physical styles gave the impression of being at the heart of a diverse society where a certain kind of social peace and art of living reigned. Automobile traffic was fluid and consisted of a few private cars and old public buses. The big park in the center of town was a favorite spot for the local inhabitants. They enjoyed strolling among statues representing great Soviet literary figures. The park gave the rather calm city a peaceful, “green” atmosphere. When I returned a few years later the city had completely changed. The exodus of the “European” population was striking. European faces were rare and had given way to a mostly “Kyrgyz” population that could be identified by their Mongoloid traits. These men and women had deserted the abandoned kolkhozes. The capital is now home to more than a million inhabitants, making up almost a quarter of the country’s total population. New influences were also evident in the population. Now on Fridays, surprising mixes can be seen. Men around the Tsum head toward the mosque for prayer, while young, made-up women wearing miniskirts and high heels stroll along Chui Avenue, where there are several karaoke cafés. Young men dressed in long shirts and well-trimmed beards are sometimes accompanied by their wives, who wear headscarves (hijab), an imported custom. Youth sport clothing and fashions that have also been imported, displaying different values in public space.

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Traffic had become dense and the old Jigulis, Volgas, and Moskviches now shared the road with the nouveau riche’s big German cars with tinted windows and dozens of NGOs’ and international organizations’ white Toyota four-wheel-drive vehicles with their enormous radio antennas. Public buses had practically disappeared and were being replaced by private Japanese-built vans that inhabitants pile into to travel around the city, its limits forever being pushed back. At the foot of the mountains in the city’s heights, neighborhoods were being developed for the “new Kyrgyz,” with ostentatious houses built behind high walls, while, in other sections, makeshift dwellings were spreading into what looked like future shantytowns. Street names and public places had been renamed even if the inhabitants continued to use the old names. The Red Square became Ala-Too (Tian Shan) Square. Lenin’s statue was unbolted and removed;2 the central committee became the presidential administration, commonly referred to as the White House since independence. The Communist Party offices became the Parliament (Jogorko Kenesh), while the Lenin Museum now exhibits the big kitsch frescoes representing the new vision of national history built around the legendary founding father, Manas. All around Ala-Too Square, new actors have become part of the landscape as well. The American University of Central Asia (AUCA) now occupies the former offices of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Kyrgyz Republic and educates the country’s future elite. Not far from there on Lenin Avenue, renamed Chui Avenue, the imposing building of the old supermarket Dietski Mir (Children’s World) hosts the UN staff, while the World Bank has set up headquarters in a brand new glass-paneled building nearby. Embassies and the offices of NGOs, foundations, and international organizations are also situated near the Kyrgyz seat of power. Shops, stands, and stalls have multiplied in the downtown area, attesting to the emergence of a private economy. Street sellers have set up makeshift stalls on every street corner to sell miscellaneous wares. The old state department store (Tsum) was bought by an Italian businessman, and this former symbol of Soviet consumerism is now in competition with other malls and supermarkets that thrive in the urban cityscape. Young Kyrgyz meet there to stroll around among the stands exhibiting the latest cell phones and fashionable clothes from famous French and Italian fashion designers. Another symbol showing the connection to worldwide trade is that money has become a popular way of oiling certain social relations. On Togolok Moldo Avenue, which everyone calls Sovietskaia, dozens of currency exchange desks have popped up. Big signs show the exchange rates. The American dollar is king, but it is easy to exchange four other currencies; the Kazakh tenge, the Chinese yuan, the euro, and the Russian ruble.

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These currencies are indicators of the orientation of trade between Kyrgyzstan and the outside world. Each currency has a different function. The dollar is not only the currency used for international trade, but is also used to accumulate capital and as a standard of value for setting the amount of a debt. The yuan is mainly used in business transactions for importing Chinese goods. The ruble and the Kazakh tenge reveal the continuation of ties with these former Soviet republics. Dozens of Internet cafés have opened, where the young and the notso-young can have a window on the world or can simply play the video games that occupy teenagers worldwide. In the evening, the city is lit up by neon signs for casinos, bars, and clubs that have opened. On the outskirts of the city lies an enormous bazaar, covering an area greater than a square mile, where trade in goods produced in China has developed. The Dordoy Bazaar, a paradise of consumerism and free trade, symbolizes the changes in a country where the economy is no longer in the hands of the state. Kyrgyzstan has become a society of traders.

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The Bazaar: The Return to a Natural Economic Order? The word “bazaar” calls to mind the opulent oriental bazaar, where peasants and merchants in turbans mix with urban dwellers, such as the one in Tashkurgan in Afghanistan, remarkably described by Centlivres (1972), or the suq in Sefru as it was rendered by Geertz (2003). It is a place where a myriad of trades and social statuses mingle, depending on family relations, regional affiliations, corporations, and religious associations (Centlivres 1972). The bazaar as it existed at the end of the Soviet era had practically wiped out the bazaar as a social organization. Today, in the heart of the Kyrgyz capital, only the Osh Bazaar3 reflects the Central Asian Soviet market. Fresh produce arriving mainly from the south of the country is sold to the local population every day. The privatization of agriculture gradually led to the disappearance of kolkhozes and the emergence of merchants. The Osh Bazaar itself was privatized in 1995 (Spector 2008). At the same time, a new type of market developed in the outskirts of the city in the direction of the Chui valley: the Dordoy Bazaar. On weekends, numerous marshrutki (private vans) that crisscross the city are crowded with people heading there. In the space of a few years, this new mecca of consumerism has become the largest private bazaar in Central Asia, attracting thousands of clients from all over the country and even from all over the former USSR. Spread out over more than a square mile, hundreds of shipping containers converted into shops are methodically lined up to welcome merchants selling products from China, Russia, Turkey, and

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the Arab Emirates. Part of the clientele is made up of small retailers who come to buy goods for their shops in their province. The Dordoy Bazaar is, above all, a market for wholesale and semi-wholesale. Clothing can be bought there as well as the latest Nike sneakers, knockoff Franco-Chinese perfumes, flat-screen TVs, the latest cell phones, or simply staple goods. This type of market can be compared to the enormous Chatuchak Market in Bangkok. The Dordoy Bazaar is thus the place where the complex transnational ties that Kyrgyz citizens have formed in less than two decades take shape. Dordoy symbolizes the advent of a new market economy. The market’s role is all the more significant as there are few resources and little local production by which to create capital for generating both wealth and jobs, thus creating relations of dependence among fellow citizens. With the collapse of livestock farming, the partial privatization of agriculture, and the disappearance of industry, the bazaar economy has asserted itself as a vital locus of social reorganization. In Uzbekistan, the state has maintained its control over society and the economy. It relies on exploitation of resources such as natural gas, gold, and especially cotton, making it possible to maintain a collectivist system. A bloated bureaucracy prevents the emergence of independent economic actors. In fact, the Uzbek government did its best to destroy the bazaar economy. The closing of the enormous Gipodrom Bazaar in Tashkent in 2002 left the Dordoy free to take on a central role throughout the Central Asian region. In Kyrgyzstan, privatization has enabled some men and women to gain control of resources, allowing them to accumulate wealth that sometimes amounts to true fortunes. Some have come to own rent-producing resources, which do not, for all that, guarantee that it is possible to create ties of obligation. Relations of patronage, however, are necessary for building social and political legitimacy, which, as we will see, is the strength of bazaar owners. Market principles have extended into the development of other places of consumerism, such as the supermarkets that have gradually sprouted in urban Kyrgyzstan. The Tsum, once the mecca of Soviet consumerism, has been turned into a superstore. All manner of goods can be found there: electronics and computers, appliances, telephones, as well as cosmetics. There are also supermarkets whose aisles are mainly filled with imported goods such as French wine, Dutch butter and cheeses, Swiss and German chocolates, American sodas, and Russian foods. Malls with their shopping arcades display consumer products (clothing, toys, jewelry, CDs, cameras, etc.) that only a minority can actually afford. These new places have also become venues for outings where people come and gaze at these new objects of desire.

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Bazaars and supermarkets offering mainly imported goods are cropping up throughout the country. These places are therefore the product of the logics of resource capture outside of Kyrgyz social space. They are controlled by people who reap unprecedented economic, social, and political benefits.

The “Bazarkoms”: New Social Figures The increase in the number of consumer venues does not mean that the population has easy access to these newly coveted objects. For the majority, privatization has been synonymous with a brutal drop in social status and impoverishment. Most of these consumer goods remain inaccessible. The new economy has led the poorest segment into a process of indebtedness. For others, the economic boom has been a period of unprecedented opportunity. The development of a market economy has been materialized by the emergence of a new social group made up in particular by the owners of bazaars and people involved in organizing trade. The bazarkoms (owners of bazaars) control a territory where they form relations of dependence with a clientele. Askar Salymbekov, owner of Dordoy Bazaar, former governor of the Naryn region, and parliamentary representative, is an emblematic figure of bazarkoms’ influence.

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Property and Political Protection: The Dordoy Bazaar and Askar Salymbekov Askar Salymbekov is one of the richest men in the country.4 His Dordoy Bazaar has become the lung of the Kyrgyz economy, along with the KaraSuu Bazaar, located near the city of Osh not far from Uzbekistan. This type of bazaar symbolizes the decline of a goods-producing society and the rise of a society that depends massively on imports. The bazaar trades mainly in goods from China, which transit through two major road arteries, the northern route through the Torugart Pass and the southern one through the Irkeshtam Pass. Salymbekov does not have his office at the bazaar. He works out of an office in Dordoy Plaza, a modern glass shopping mall that recently opened in downtown Bishkek. During our first meeting, Salymbekov, whose staff includes a woman with a perfect command of French, gained at Paris School of Oriental Languages, called her in to read a passage from a book that had been published by a French traveler.5 He did not appreciate at all the

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caricatured portrait she gave of him as an apparatchik governor. Salymbekov told me, “I didn’t like the way she described our meeting. She was lost; I helped her and offered to let her rest. I wanted to show her kindness by inviting her to stay with us for a while. I told her we would sacrifice a sheep in her honor, and the only thing she found to say in her book was, ‘Oh no, not another sheep eye.’ She did not appreciate our hospitality, and the only things she said about us are caricatures. She did not understand a thing, and she thought maybe that I wouldn’t read her book.” This anecdote was a way of expressing his wariness toward me, but also of showing me that he was sensitive about his image and that of his country. Before this meeting, I had also heard about his reputation from the internationals who presented him as a mere bazaar manager whose economic success was shady or even linked to the mafia. For some Kyrgyz, Salymbekov’s success provokes ambivalent and contradictory feelings that can be tinged as much with admiration as with scorn. His career path is worth examining more closely, however. Askar Salymbekov agreed to let me spend several weeks in his company to observe his activities and analyze his experience and the different places that characterize his life. One day after a long discussion in his office, he invited me to get into his Toyota SUV with tinted windows. His chauffer drove us to his home in a chic neighborhood high up in the city’s heights where houses for the “new Kyrgyz” have sprouted up over the past ten years. These buildings all look alike and are reminiscent of the ostentatious houses in American television series such as Dallas and Dynasty. They are a flamboyant way of showing off material success through their size, color, and style, despite their being hidden behind high walls to conceal them from pubic gaze. When we arrived, bodyguards rushed to open the gate. The car was parked in front of a building reserved for the security staff, while the several-story house lay at the other end of the grounds with a perfectly trimmed lawn. Salymbekov lives there with his wife and their oldest son Ulugbek and his wife and their young child. The house is enormous and the rooms are spacious. The furnishings are spare, making the huge home feel empty. We went into the main room, where his daughter-in-law was watching the American channel MTV on a huge flat-screen TV. She left the room on our arrival, and Salymbekov picked up the remote control and switched to a Russian channel to listen to the news without sitting down. We then looked through his library together. He led me to his desk, where several recent works on Russian politicians were laid out. These few elements show to what extent Russia still remains a determining reflex: Russia is still the reference point for Kyrgyz politicians. They are turned toward Moscow; they watch Russian TV to be informed and are inspired for their

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own society by the changes and reforms taking place in Russia. Indeed, many decisions in Kyrgyz political life seem to imitate Russia. Askar Salymbekov rummaged through his library looking for a book that he finally found and gave me as a gift. To my amazement, it was a little known and rather rare work by a great Soviet ethnologist and Kyrgyzstan specialist, Saul Abramzon. Through these gestures, my host indicated that his interests were not limited to business and that he was also trying to win me over. This strategy and the way he presented himself spoke volumes about how he viewed his career path. A few days later, his chauffer drove us to his native village. Salymbekov insisted on showing me At-Bashi, located in the north of the country in the mountainous Naryn region.6 He did all of his schooling there before being recommended by his history teacher for the state university in Frunze (Bishkek). Before entering the village, he had us driven to the cemetery to visit the grave of his Russian schoolteacher, whom he held dear. He confided, “I recently paid for a tombstone because it is important to me to continue honoring her. Here we never had any problems with the Russians. They did a lot for us, especially in terms of education, and I sincerely regret that they are practically all gone.” He does not perceive the Soviet experience as a period imposed on Kyrgyzstan by the Russians: “For me, a young schoolboy in a remote village, the system allowed me to climb the social ladder and gave me an education and incredible opportunities.” We then went to the family home, where his mother was waiting for him. It was immediately apparent that the house was also used as a place for receiving people, where different forms of grievances could be put forth. In the courtyard were gathered people who had been informed that the village’s famous native son, now the district’s representative in Parliament, had arrived. They were waiting in hopes of being able to ask him to solve various problems. Salymbekov had come to the village to visit his mother, as well as his other wife7 and their young son, who were spending the summer there. He said, “Here is my youngest son. Look at how his cheeks are nice and red from the sun, he has spent the whole summer on the jailoo. It is important for him to take advantage of the pure air here, to soak up this experience with the shepherds and play with the other children from the village, to speak Kyrgyz and to get a feel for his roots.” The four Salymbekov brothers now live in the capital with their families, but they remain attached to their region. In the village, a cousin is in charge of taking care of family businesses, in particular the supermarket. Several pictures of Askar are hung throughout the house, in particular a photo where he is with the President. Family relations are important, but his success is linked to the various social relations he has managed to develop within state institutions. Askar Salymbekov joined the Communist

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Party in 1979. He held a national office in the Komosols and was then president of the sports committee within the Kyrgyz Communist Party (1986– 91). After independence, he headed the committee in charge of markets for the city of Bishkek (1991–93), and he himself invested in this sector. As a young member of the Soviet nomenklatura, he was a sports enthusiast, and his position gave him access to the privilege of traveling as a member of the sports committee for the Kyrgyz Republic. He told me, “I remember when we used to go to Moscow to see soccer matches; we would first go hang around Luzhniki Stadium, where we found all kinds of stuff that was hard to find elsewhere—jeans, for instance. Later on in Bishkek, I saw a lot of my fellow compatriots getting into the suitcase trade. They would come back with their bags full of goods to sell without really having a place to sell them. So I created a first market near the stadium in downtown, but it was not convenient.” Under the wing of the mayor of the capital, Amangeldi Muraliev, Askar Salymbekov obtained land in the suburbs of Bishkek in 1993, at the time of privatization. He bought a bankrupt sheep hide tannery. As the owner of a symbol of the former economy, he used the enormous space to build his future bazaar. During another trip in Europe, he fine-tuned his vision: “An idea suddenly dawned on me when I went to Italy for the World Cup. I realized that the market economy was about places: supermarkets, bazaars. The energy of all of these men and women who were leaving with their suitcases had to be harnessed. In the Soviet system, human potential was not exploited. I realized that the bazaar was going to become a strategic place in our economy, especially with our proximity to China.” His market became the gathering place for the multitudes of busy Kyrgyz bees who were involved in the trade boom. He chose an elaborate strategy of association with his network of acquaintances, which extended beyond his kin. He became partners with a klastash (schoolmate), Kubat Baibolov, who had a career in the KGB. Baibolov was also close to President Akayev. Baibolov and his wife also owned several markets in the capital. There was a third investor, a former senior official in the ministry of the interior, Alisher Sobirov, who was a close friend. These two partnerships allowed Salymbekov to protect his activities during a volatile period. His klastash had the role of a protector—krisha8—an essential element during a period of political instability. Salymbekov also used his bazaar to build his political career. His social relations within the municipality and the state allowed him to gradually develop his business while associating politicians9 with his prosperity— several ministers and legislators own containers at the Dordoy market. His business ventures were met with dazzling success. As the status of any business can be challenged by political and administrative intervention,

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Salymbekov needed political protection. He is even said to have played the role of kepki,10 or front man, for certain politicians who refused to have it known publicly that they were stockholders in the bazaar. Such alliances are necessary in the event of partiality on behalf of a tax inspection or a surprise safety inspection that could suddenly shut down the bazaar.

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From Dordoy Bazaar to Dordoy Associatsia: The Transmission of Capital Family relations, however, undeniably play an increasingly important role in Kyrgyz social logics. In the living room in the family house in AtBashi, the grandfather’s picture occupies pride of place. The bazaar and Salymbekov’s company are named after this paternal grandfather. Dordoy Salimbek was an important merchant and livestock owner (bey) who was a victim of Soviet repression in the 1930s. He was deported with his family to southern Russia in the region of Orenburg. Before the Soviets came to power, he did business with China and Namangan when the town of At-Bashi had an important market along that trade route. Salymbekov explained, “My grandfather was an important merchant who traveled a great deal both west and east. Today, At-Bashi is a village with no business activity, but less than a century ago it was a small town, a hub with its numerous caravanserail and bazaars because it was at the center of constant commercial trade between Kokand and Kashgar. The Soviet experience cut us off from China, but today we can finally reestablish those ties and hope that our region will recover its dynamism.” The Dordoy name refers at once to the bazaar and to a vast conglomerate. Arriving in the valley of Naryn, the bazarkom’s district and the region for which he was governor, the word “DORDOY” can be seen in the distance, written in big white letters on the side of a hill; the name has thus become closely associated with the area’s history. Dordoy is an identity marker for the narinchar (people from Naryn) in the national Kyrgyz landscape. With the current dazzling success, rumors are rife. Some see the homage paid to the grandfather as an explanation for the grandson’s success and mention a treasure supposedly hidden by the former bey before he was deported. Other legends allude to the discovery of a treasure by the shepherd in the high mountain pastures. Salymbekov has capitalized on this social ascension by being appointed governor of the Naryn Region by President Akayev during a period when the Akim played an important role in implementing a policy of state disengagement. He used his local influence to improve the road network, making it possible to get to China via Torugart Pass, which became crucial for expanding his bazaar. He did not invest directly in the merchandise trade and left the kamaz (trucking) business to others: “I did not venture into the trucking business because

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you need connections, particularly in customs, which I had not developed sufficiently at the time. You have to realize that, for transportation and trucks, you need to have special relations with the police and customs officers; otherwise they can penalize your activities very quickly.” Salymbekov brought his brothers, his nephews, and his children into business with him and reinvested his fortune is his country. In a few years, he had developed Dordoy Associatsia, a holding company made up of over twenty-five different concerns. The company has activities in the banking sector, tourism, culture, and healthcare. Its success is incarnated in the Dordoy Plaza shopping mall, which includes a supermarket, shops, and offices. This enormous shopping complex in downtown Bishkek was built with the help of a Hungarian investor and is managed by Salymbekov’s eldest son. Ulugbek Salymbekov is in his thirties and studied at a business school in Monaco and at the American University in Bishkek. He speaks English fluently and also manages the Ala-Too movie theater while currently developing a project for a multiplex movie theater and plans for a business center near the family mall. Salymbekhov placed one of his brothers, Mamatbay, a former veterinarian in a kolkhoz in At-Bashi, in charge of managing Dordoy Bazaar, as well as another market (Muras Sport), while Shayshenbay11 oversees part of the Alamedin market, where fruit and vegetables are sold. His nephew, Djumabek, is at the head of a part of Dordoy (Dzhunhay) exclusively reserved for Chinese retailers. Raimbek is in charge of developing a recently opened automobile market (Dordoy Motors). Another one of his nephews, Rispek, is in charge of sporting goods (Dordoy Dynamo). Other companies in the Dordoy group have taken on a national dimension, ranging from manufacturing companies for furniture (Dordoy Mebel) and PVC products (Dordoy Plast) to rock quarry management (Ak-Tash). Salymbekov is also the owner of a security services and cash transport company (Dordoy Security), a private ophthalmologist clinic (Dordoy Oftalmik Servis), a law firm (Shentsov), a leisure outfit (Dordoy Marine Club), and a travel agency (Dordoy Tour). All of these entities are run by people who are close to Salymbekov, but not all of them are necessarily family members. Salymbekov has, however, limited the development of his activities to his native region and the capital. He has invested a great deal in Bishkek and also owns supermarkets in the town of Naryn and in At-Bashi. He explained, “I could not develop my activities in the south. At one time I bought some land to attempt the experience, but I have been advised against it since Bakiyev was elected. So I sold the land; it doesn’t matter. Now, with globalization, I can also conquer other markets.” He was trying to expand abroad. After Bakiyev, who is from the south of the country, was elected in 2005, Salymbekov took the owner of the Choro

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dairy company under his protection. Choro’s CEO told me, “For me, and I would even say for us in the north, the situation has become very complicated since Bakiyev was elected, and I’m afraid. But by working with Askar, I hope my business will not be sunk by the new administration in power. I try to keep a low profile, and we have projects for expanding in Russia. We work with the Chinese in the Artouch region to increase our production.” Creating a family business is important in a society where the transmission of wealth, assets, real estate, and social status are now possible. In the Soviet system, the transmission of any type of capital was extremely complicated because of the permanent intervention of the state and the frequent challenges to social status. Today, a society is emerging where the social transmission of economic capital is henceforth possible. The success of this family enterprise is also based on the ability to establish relations beyond the family circle and the Kyrgyz social environment. Askar Salymbekov has surrounded himself with members of his family and acquaintances from his various experiences within state institutions (university, sports, state administrations, etc.), but he has also created ties with the outside world. During a trip to the Artouch region (Xinjiang) in China at the end of the 1980s, he befriended a Chinese citizen. “During one of my trips with the sports committee in 1988, it was the beginning of the opening up of the country—I met a Kyrgyz in China, we became friends. Well, I mean a Uyghur, you know; we became friends and we started doing business together. Later we married his son to my brother’s daughter. We are now part of the same family.” Salymbekov sent his eldest son to study in Europe, and his youngest son is currently studying in Beijing. He explained: “Tomorrow’s world is a couple hours’ drive from here, in China. We absolutely need to reinforce our understanding of the Chinese world in our family business. We need to better understand the Chinese mentality; they are our powerful neighbors. My son will speak Chinese fluently, and he will help us relate better to our neighbors.” Like Salymbekov’s business, Kyrgyz society is gradually establishing ties with the outside world and relations with China are taking on a new dimension.

Patronage and Political Clientele It is not so much commerce that is important as controlling the territory where the merchandise is sold. That is where close relationships of dependence are created with merchants, workers, retailers, porters, carriers, freight forwarders, customs officers, and other such trades that develop around the bazaar. It takes several days to tour the entire Dordoy Bazaar due to its large area and thousands of shipping containers and warehouses. Depending on where it is located, a shipping container goes for anywhere

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between $10,000 and $50,000. According to an officer on the bazaar management committee, an estimated twenty thousand people work directly at Dordoy. Salymbekov told me, “There are probably more than one hundred thousand people who depend on our activities in Kyrgyzstan.” There is always work at Dordoy, especially for former kolkhoz members deserting the countryside. Some of these workers are from the Naryn valley, but many come from the overpopulated south of the country. The bazaar is an extremely organized economic territory where there is absolutely no place for any form of anarchy. Several covered and partially covered alleys are lined with rows of shipping containers on two levels. Each shop displays its merchandise on the ground level and the upper container contains its stock. The alleys are organized by specialty: textiles and clothing, stationery and office supplies, toys, automobile parts, hi-fi/ video and electronics, telephone services, furniture, rugs, and building materials. These commercial activities bring in related jobs and services— for example, automobile mechanics, telephone and hi-fi technicians and repairmen, etc. Given the number of activities, the bazaar is a small town where people offer cleaning services, restaurants, and hotel accommodations, as well as shoe repair, pharmacies, and hairdressers. The bazaar includes two bus stations offering bus connections with towns in the south and Uzbekistan, towns in the north, and destinations in Kazakhstan and Russia. Thousands of shuttle traders come through there. Wholesale companies occupy an important place at Dordoy. They rent enormous warehouses where merchandise from all over the world is stocked. There are also long-haul trucking companies on the bazaar’s premises (Allianz, Milan, Tian Shan) and packaging companies for repackaging and shipping merchandise. Different government services are also present at the bazaar—fireman, for example, but also customs officers, who handle customs clearance procedures. Furthermore, certain state agencies keep a close eye on Islamic proselytism. Bazaar life marches to the rhythm of a mosque (which was built in 2001), capable of accommodating over a thousand worshippers. In the past couple of years, Dordoy has become a major venue for the new Kyrgyz society. A wide variety of sociological profiles are found there. There are several distinct categories of people making a living from the bazaar economy. The owners of container-shops now make up a new, relatively small social class in Kyrgyz society. Some of them own a dozen shipping containers. They rarely work on site. Among them, there is a former Togolok Moldo villager, the Manbetov’s neighbor, who started his professional career by going to Russia to sell jeans. Ruslan, the youngest of his five brothers and sisters, never intended to stay in the village with his parents the way tradition would have it. His studies at the Agronomy

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Institute in Bishkek were of little help in finding work. He thus went into a partnership with his sister and his brother-in-law, a former schoolteacher, to buy wholesale merchandise that they sold as retail on Osh Bazaar. This small business was exhausting, but it quickly made the couple enough money to buy a shipping container at Dordoy. In 2001, Ruslan decided to buy his own container for $5,500. He sold Chinese clothes that he bought himself in Urumqi (China). He later decided to stop working at the bazaar: “I got out of the job because being a bazari is hard work, especially during the winter. My legs ached from the cold and I got sick.” He now rents out his container and just landed a government job. He told me, “I like my new career better, plus my investment makes money. A container can be rented for $500 to $3,000 a month depending on its location.” Container owners pay a license fee that covers local taxes and security services on the market. Owners run their container-shop themselves or have employees. Thus a wage-earning class has been introduced into Kyrgyz society. Owners who have become particularly rich rent out their containers. These renters are called realizators. There are also street peddlers who are called little realizators. Ruslan explains, “They come see you and offer to take a few pairs of jeans that they hawk to the crowds in the alleys of the market.” Bakit, Kubanachbek Manbetov’s son, also works on a market, the Taatan Bazaar, owned by a former minister (Djumaliev). Bakit said, “You never see the real bazaar director and, anyway, officially he is never the owner; he wears a hat [kepki].” Bakit worked several odd jobs before gaining the trust of a Chinese businessman. Having studied in Bishkek, he now works for a Han. Bakit recounts, “He has become a friend, and he is the one who taught me how to speak Russian. We are practically partners; we have plans together.” Some Chinese in fact go into partnership with Kyrgyz nationals to develop their economic activity while limiting their visibility in order not to create tension. At the bottom of the hierarchy of trades and types of wage earners are taksists—porters—allegedly numbering more than four thousand at Dordoy. They can be recognized by the colored-coded tabards they wear, which identify them by brigade and by number. This activity requires a permit and enters into the specific organization of tasks on the market’s premises. With their huge carts, they play a strategic role in the smooth running of the bazaar. They cart packages from wholesalers to container-shops and from container-shops to buyers’ vehicles at the market. During the daytime, there are also gypsies (luli) who walk up and down the alleys practicing fumigations to clean the shops of the evil eye. All these different trades come into contact with the bazaar administration on several accounts. Merchants who own or rent their containers

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are organized into groups by location to handle day-to-day problems. Each group is a sort of professional association that acts as an intermediary with the market administration. They are in contact with a bazaar employee, the kontrolior (controller), who is in charge of collecting license fees, registering containers, and solving security problems or disputes among neighbors. Kontrolior is a strategic job in the market administration. Talapai’s son, who has permanently left Togolok Moldo because of the difficulties the family business experienced, is now kontrolior at the Alamedin market, which belongs to Salymbekov. Talapai told me, “If Sharshanbay Salymbekov, who was one of my close friends, had not been murdered, he would have been my son’s godfather. We have nonetheless remained close to the family, and my son now works in the bazaar administration.” There can be five or six controllers per bazaar. It is a job reserved for trusted employees, as they handle large amounts of money. The bazaar has its own security service for when it closes its doors at night and on holidays. Dordoy Security has several thousand employees who work in the different bazaars of the family company. The bazaar administration also serves as an intermediary for essential relations between people working at Dordoy and government agencies, particularly customs and the police. The owner of the bazaar reaps considerable social benefits by being at the heart of multiple social ties. The bazaar has become a significant political territory, where the owner can build up a political clientele. Indeed that is what helped Salymbekov and his brother get elected to the Kyrgyz Parliament. Economic relations overlap regional solidarity ties, given that many employees at the bazaar come from Naryn. The various levels of ties can turn into sources of political mobilization. During the legislative election campaign, Salymbekov held rallies at the bazaar, and on election day he had buses drive people to vote in the region of Naryn. The bazaar is also a place for recruiting campaign staff. Ruslan, who thus embodies the success of young people who went off to the capital, was, for example, a campaigner for a parliamentary representative. These trusted men (doverenje or ichremendi) travel all over the capital and to villages to organize a dozen people in charge of mobilizing voters.

Redistribution and Social Legitimacy Clearly, impoverishment and crisis are not the only features of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. For some people, the period has been decisive in their attainment of a privileged social position. All societies generate their specific forms for distributing resources. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, the advent of bazarkoms has entailed the emergence of a society in which private property and business have remodeled social relations. The people who have

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benefited from these changes are expected, however, to distribute the wealth they have accumulated. The bazaar is thus above all a place that offers a myriad of job opportunities and creates relations of obligation between various people who work there and the owner. The nouveaux riche are then expected to spend their wealth on selfless actions that benefit the community. Redistribution takes place first and foremost in their native region. These new Kyrgyz use different occasions to establish their power and prestige.

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Soccer and Kok-boru Sports have been important in Salymbekov’s life ever since he was young. Sports correspond to a certain view on life: “Sports are healthy, and without good health people cannot live happily.”12 This relationship with sports is in line with Soviet culture, which promoted physical activity. In his dacha a couple of miles from Bishkek, Salymbekov plays tennis with his wife and his children. The sport, which, for a long time was considered bourgeois and individualist, was Boris Yeltsin’s favorite pastime, thus launching a huge craze among post-Soviet elites. It was even the symbol of a new relationship with the western world. It was also a new relationship with oneself, based on individual performance. In Salymbekov’s office on the top floor of Dordoy Plaza, several objects show his attachment to sports. A photo shows him with Pelé, the international soccer star. Salymbekov is the owner of a professional soccer team, Dordoy-Naryn Dynamo, which regularly wins the national championship and even became famous by once winning the Asian Cup. He bought the capital’s prestigious soccer club Dynamo for his team, and it is now called Dordoy-Naryn. The team embodies his company as well as his region, although its matches are played in Bishkek. Salymbekov is also the vice president of the national soccer federation. His attachment to soccer is consistent with the post-Soviet soccer business world. Salymbekov often mentions the success of various businessmen who successfully took over soccer clubs in Russia, such as Alexei Miller, the director of Gazprom who sponsors the Saint Petersburg Zenith, or Rinat Akhmetov, the steel and coal billionaire who is the patron of Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine. Salymbekov also finances many other sports, in particular different athletic clubs in Naryn and At-Bashi (soccer, wrestling, and boxing). He sponsors a few Kyrgyz champions who participate in international competitions (the Asian Games, the Olympics, etc.). He is the founder and president of the Kyrgyz kok-boru federation as well. This equestrian sport, considered the ancestor of polo, is better known as Buzkashi thanks to the description Joseph Kessel gives in his famous novel The Horsemen.13

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Outlawed at first and then more or less tolerated during the Soviet era, kok-boru has come back into fashion since independence. It is an event generally held on the occasion of a circumcision, and it brings together a dozen horsemen who compete for the carcass of a decapitated goat. The federation must therefore standardize and harmonize the rules and organize a nationwide championship. It falls in line with the policy of restoring Kyrgyz national spirit.14 Salymbekov also contributes to different educational initiatives. He has developed a personal relationship with the Aga Khan and his foundation, AKDN (Aga Khan Development Network), which has a strong presence and influence throughout Central Asia. The spiritual leader of the Ismaili decided to establish a university in the town of Naryn. Salymbekov also grants scholarships to various talented youths.

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Giving to the Dead and to God: Monuments and Jubilees Although one must give to others, it is equally essential to give to the dead and to God. Salymbekov, who has a degree from the History Institute, is interested in his country’s and his area’s history, and he fully grasps the ideological importance history takes on in setting up a new political order. He has thus financed the construction of several edifices and monuments glorifying the restoration of national history. He had an Archeological Museum (Kosho Ordo) built in his native town of At-Bashi, and he subsidizes archeological digs. He has also financed the restoration of a historical site on the Silk Road (Kosho Korgon), and he bought the history museum in the town of Naryn as well, which exhibits various Soviet artists. In the new social context, Islam has also become a cultural marker that is practically inseparable from Kyrgyzness. Every good Kyrgyz should be a Muslim. A former Communist Party member, Askar Salymbekov does not seem to attach great importance to Islam in his personal life; however, in Islam he finds social and moral values that cannot be ignored. He explained: “When I was the Governor of Naryn, I remembered God, and there weren’t even any mosques. And I promised myself that each village would have its mosque. Because a lot of youths drink, they don’t work, women sell their bodies. … in the Quran and in the Bible there is a code to abide by to respect oneself and others. In the Naryn Oblast there is no Islamic fundamentalism. In the south, it is a problem when Islam is used as a weapon. The mosque should be a place for praying and the Quran a moral code. I solicited philanthropists from Arab countries and Egypt to help us build these mosques.” Salymbekov has therefore become an essential intermediary between the local population and the international actors of re-Islamization. He

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is thus a vital broker through whom to gain access to a wide variety of resources in Kyrgyz society. The figure of the businessman with firm economic power is legitimized by political participation as well. Gifts bring protagonists together momentarily because they share something, but these new forms of prodigality distance them socially because they create obligations. There are, however, things that cannot be given but are instead passed on. Behind praise of circulation, paradoxically a society is emerging in which the transmission of property is a source of social and political legitimacy.

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The Changing Face of the Bazaar: The Labor Market on Avenue Maladoja Guardia The market is a place where personal relations do not dominate; even face-to-face transactions are determined by a price that does not vary according to social or identity ties between the protagonists. That is what characterizes the rational organization of Dordoy market, yet it is materialized differently in a new informal labor market. The place is not as visible, yet it is just as significant in the evolution of Kyrgyz society. On the side streets off Maladoja Guardia Avenue, one of the capital’s central thoroughfares, small groups of men and sometimes women come together on the basis of their affinities. The groups often share the same ethnic or regional identity. They wait for recruiters to arrive in trucks, looking for cheap labor. From time to time they rush to a truck that is slowing down. Some make a deal with the driver and hop into the back of the truck to go to a construction site. On this informal market there is no international aid or local political interest. The state’s disengagement caused a great number of enterprises to close down and provoked a rise in unemployment. These men now live with no social protection, no work contracts, and in precarious living conditions. These former workers or kolkhoz members have become day laborers who are often exploited by unscrupulous entrepreneurs. International organizations and NGOs are completely absent. One day worker told me, “I sure would like to know what they do with humanitarian aid. … Last time we were hired to unload bags of food at the airport for an NGO. What do they do with it? In any case, we never see any of that food and we need it here! NGOs have never come here. We feel like we’ve been left to our own fate. We survive on our own. NGOs do nothing for the people. All they do is politics. It would be better if they helped us. They never come here. They go to forums in Austria and elsewhere; that is what NGO means. They do nothing for simple people like us.”

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The government is just as absent. A former tractor operator from the Naryn region explained to me, “We are waiting here for work; everyone knows about this place. Even government officials from the president’s office come for us. They know very well that we work for a piece of bread or 100 soms (about two dollars) a day. Sometimes less, sometimes more, and sometimes there is no work at all. Akayev destroyed all of the sovkhozes, kolkhozes, factories, and mills. There is nothing left in our country.” A young teenage boy with a wound on his face added, “I’m fourteen years old. A brick fell on my head at a construction site. I was lucky that it wasn’t too serious, otherwise I wouldn’t have healed. My parents are retired and don’t have enough money to feed my sister and me. So I decided to drop out of school and I come here to find work to earn a living.” This type of informal market does not constitute a territory because it is not organized and it belongs to no one. Muslim preachers can sometimes be seen there trying to start up conversations and offer support for this population group that is completely at a loss in the face of such social upheaval. The opening up and liberalization of Kyrgyzstan is thus materialized in the burgeoning of all kinds of markets that have the particularity of being territories in which goods from neighboring China are traded. A significant portion of this merchandise is then shipped elsewhere, all over the post-Soviet space. The bazaar is the spatial materialization of the market economy, while the bazarkom is the human incarnation of this social transfiguration of a nation that has tapped into the globalization of trade. Kyrgyzstan is a transit society on the fringe of large states. It takes advantage of this position to fulfill the function of a society of trade in its broader environment. In the preceding chapter, I analyzed how the circulation of certain ideas, goods, and individuals has transformed contemporary Kyrgyz society. Mobility has ended up having a decisive impact on the redefinition of the Kyrgyz political order, which was reflected in the March 2005 elections.

Notes 1. E. Hamon and B. Petric, Democracy@large (KG Production, 2005). Documentary film. 2. There was a series of heated discussions in Parliament about what to do with Lenin, pitting those who wanted to keep the statue in place against those who wanted to see it disappear. 3. This bazaar was privatized and is owned by the Bojbolov family.

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4. See the magazine De Fakto, which publishes a ranking of fortunes. Salymbekov was high on the list. 5. Amadine Roche (2005), Nomade sur la voie d’Ella Maillart (Paris: Payot). 6. It is in the same region as the village of Togolok Moldo. 7. Having more than one wife is common practice even though it is officially forbidden by law. 8. Krisha means “roof,” “that which protects.” 9. Several ministers and representatives own shipping containers on the Dordoy market. 10. Kepki means “hat.” 11. Chaichenbaj was murdered in 2006. 12. Dordoy Association: 15 let (Bishkek: Dordoy Association, 2006). 13. Joseph Kessel (1969), The Horsemen (New York: New American Library). 14. Salymbekov also sponsors a festival dedicated to Kyrgyz horses. See Jacqueline Ripart’s website, http://pagesperso-orange.fr/daniel.beldio/ripart.htm.

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References Alexander, Catherine, and Victor Buchli. 2007. Urban Life in Post-Soviet Asia. London: UCL Press. Boone, Catherine. 2006. Merchant Capital and the Roots of the State Power in Senegal: 1930–1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burawoy, Michael. 2002. Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Post-Socialist World. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Centlivres, Pierre. 1972. Un Bazar d’Asie Centrale: Forme et Organisation du Bazar de Tashkûrgan. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Geertz, Clifford. 2003. “Suq: The Bazaar Economy in Sefrou,” In Clifford Geertz, Hildred Geertz, and Lawrence Rosen, Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society: Three Essays in Cultural Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hann, Chris. 1998. “Introduction: The Embeddedness of Property.” In Chris Hann, ed., Property Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–47. Keshavarzian, Arang. 2007. Bazaar and State in Iran. The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Megoran, Nick, Gael Raballand, and Jerôme Bouju. 2005. “Performance, Representation, and the Economics of Border Control in Uzbekistan.” Geopolitics 10: 712–40. Spector, Regine. 2008. “Security Property in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan.” Post-Soviet Affairs 2: 147–76. ———. 2009. Protecting Property: The Politics of Bazaars in Kyrgyzstan. PhD diss., University of California at Berkeley. Verdery, Katherine. 1999. “Fuzzy Property: Rights, Power and Identity in Transylvania’s Decollectivisation.” In Michael Burawoy, ed., Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Post-Socialist World. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Verdery, Katherine, and Caroline Humphrey. 2004. Property in Question. Oxford: Berg.

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– Chapter 6 –

CIVIL SOCIETY AND ELECTION MONITORING

_ I work for NDI in Kiev; we worked very hard to bring down Kuchma in Ukraine, and I’m thrilled to be participating in this OSCE mission to do the same thing to Akayev. We need to bring civilization to these Kyrgyz because it won’t happen without us.

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—Natalia Short-term observer for the OSCE in March 2005

In March 2005, I once again set foot on the tarmac of the Bishkek airport to observe the parliamentary elections, which promised to take place in an atmosphere of high tension. Winter had hit the country hard. In the lamplit night, I could make out snowbanks lining the runway and soldiers from the American Coalition bustling around an airplane leaving for Afghanistan. On the plane, there had been a dozen French nationals coming to monitor the elections for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). We had met a few days earlier in the offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, where a French government official explained our mission within the international organization. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the OSCE, a vestige from the Cold War, has played an important role in the democratization process by monitoring elections. At the end of the first meeting, another government official, who did not introduce himself, came to speak to us about the importance of our mission given the geopolitical climate in the region. He asked for our cooperation and asked us to provide information in France’s interest. We were thus quickly immersed in a peculiar universe where the political fate of a small country, the interests of world powers, and the action of international organizations all intersected. – 108 –

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In spite of the cold weather, various demonstrations had taken place in the capital over the past weeks. Political actors and citizens were actively taking part in a public debate about ending or maintaining President Akayev’s fifteen-year reign. The situation was tense, and the campaign had started in December in the media with a series of articles published by the newspaper MSN revealing the secret assets of the Akayev family. An opposition coalition, the Kyrgyz People’s Movement, had formed around the former prime minister and his party (Ata Jurt). Kurmanbek Bakiyev was running on a ticket with the former foreign affairs minister, Roza Otumbayeva.1 The coalition was united in its opposition to the president, but it did not present a common political platform. Dissent was noticed by a number of NGOs that regularly organized demonstrations. In Bishkek, everyone was talking about the precedents in Georgia and Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan was presented as the next country in line for a color revolution. Election observers are now part of the Kyrgyz political landscape. They supposedly make up an impartial, evanescent, nongovernmental bureaucracy. They are imagined to be devoid of any emotions or feelings and are merely serving a cause: democracy. Election monitoring has increasingly become an obligation in the political reality of a number of Eastern countries. It is conducted by the OSCE as well as by national NGOs, such as Koalitsia, that are part of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO).2 In 2004, I had been surprised by the intrusion of election observation through Koalitsia’s action. Since then, Koalitsia has attracted a broad audience, and its leader, Baisalov, has become a high-profile figure.

Koalitsia and the National Democratic Institute Koalitsia has its headquarters near the presidential seat of power. In 2004, I met a young team. Several people were working on the results of the local elections. The style of their young president, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans, contrasted sharply with that of Kyrgyz civil servants. During our first meeting, Edil Baisalov insisted on speaking in English: “See, we are ready for legislative elections! You’ll see; it is going to be a major event a year from now.” He then invited me into his office and started by commenting on the presence of some books stacked on his desk. Biographies on Bill Clinton and Askar Akayev were at the top. He said, “I like both of these people even though I am fighting Akayev’s politics and even if politically I would more likely be a Republican if I lived in the United States.” Baisalov’s discourse was highly politicized, but he refused to be identified by any political label and insisted on emphasizing that Koalitsia was

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“a nonpartisan organization whose mission is to contribute to increasing civil society. It’s a network of local NGOs with about 170 partners. We are an independent group, which is an aspect that guarantees election transparency. It is what Americans call a watchdog organization.” The founder of Koalitsia offered a less idyllic version. Tolikan Ismailova worked close by in the offices of her new NGO “Citizens Against Corruption” since having been let go from Koalitsia. She spoke openly in Russian about the conditions of her dismissal. Following a referendum prolonging Akayev’s term, she had decided to run in the parliamentary elections.3 But she then encountered reluctance from her one and only donor, the National Democratic Institute (NDI).4 She recounts, “At that time, the NDI representative called me in and asked me to resign. I didn’t understand why I had to leave my organization. I answered that it was our organization and that they shouldn’t interfere because Koalitsia belonged to the Kyrgyz people. He told me that Koalitsia belonged to the NDI and forced me to leave. Since we were financed by them, I left, making way for the young Baisalov, whom the Americans had chosen.” Ismailova’s dismissal shows that the president’s legitimacy does not come “from the bottom,” to use one of the internationals’ favorite expressions. Edil Baisalov is now on Koalitsia’s payroll and was not elected by his network’s NGOs either. He even admitted that he handpicked the NGOs himself, declaring that “you can’t have more than one per village; otherwise it is too complicated to manage.” However, Koalitsia claims the right to speak in the name of civil society. Dinara Tukhtakunova, Baisalov’s assistant, remembered Koalitsia’s first steps in trying to find local partners: “I had been sent to Balakchi to organize a meeting with local community leaders. No one came; I was so upset. So I asked my father for help. He was a former local party official. I managed to fill the room, thanks to his network, and found future leaders in the group to create local NGOs that could be mobilized within our network.” Koalitsia had a hard time creating its network in a context where local NGOs did not yet exist. The concepts of “coalition” and “network,” often used to describe the density of these new organizations, eclipse the relations of power that often exist between local NGOs, national NGOs, and transnational foundations. It is a way of displaying transversal relations where there is supposedly no hierarchical structure. A nongovernmental organization can free itself from dependence on the Kyrgyz state while developing new forms of dependence. NGOs are indeed political objects within the sphere of power. They can form an opposition force at the local level and an emerging form of transnational power. The American foundation NDI was present right from the beginning of Koalitsia’s creation, and Ismailova’s eviction highlighted Koalitsia’s po-

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litical and financial dependence. Edil Baisalov readily admitted this: “We have a 110,000-euro budget at our disposal exclusively from NDI. I am not among those who deny the Americans’ essential role; without support from abroad we would not exist.”5 For its part, NDI, Koalitsia’s instigator, remains discreet about its presence. Its website underlines that its action relies above all on support from Kyrgyz citizens and politicians. The organization justifies its presence through its will to contribute to the democratization of the country: “In Kyrgyzstan, NDI continues to work with the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society in order to strengthen the organization, to increase citizen participation, and to foster citizen activity to influence public decision-making at the local, regional and national levels. The Coalition actively participated in monitoring the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000. Additionally, the Coalition lobbied against government sponsored campaigns to restrict the activities of Kyrgyzstan NGOs.” Although the foundation is forever talking about the importance of transparency in public life, Amy Schultz, who ran the office in Bishkek, agreed only reluctantly to meet with me and refused to let me observe the training workshops her team ran. She also refused to discuss the problems encountered when Tolikan Ismailova was asked to leave. Despite the American foundation’s inescapable role, Koalitsia is not an American organization. It is made up exclusively of Kyrgyz with a specific sociological profile. Edil Baisalov’s career path is similar to that of thousands of young employees in big NGOs in post-Soviet Eurasia. The proliferation of NGOs in Kyrgyz society fits into a process that is neither an exogenous phenomenon nor a natural awakening of civil society but rather the result of complex links between local and global actors. National labels confuse the matter when seeking to understand the emergence of these transnational institutions.

Baisalov: Portrait of a Democracy Promotion Icon Baisalov comes from a family of civil servants. His father was an ambulance driver and his mother was a doctor. To him it was important to point out, “My parents were skeptical and critical of the Soviet regime.” He started his studies at the University of Naryn before winning a contest organized by the American Embassy to study in Turkey. He then got a scholarship to study in Charlotte, NC. Afterwards, he returned to the Kyrgyz capital and enrolled in the American University, which had since become the country’s most prestigious institution. He then worked for a Swiss company for a while. He joined Koalitsia in 2001 as Ismailova’s right

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hand; at the same time, he was at the head of an association of Kyrgyz legal professionals. NDI then appointed him director, and his rise came at a time when the organization began to have a real stake in power at the national level. Baisalov explained: “At first, starting an NGO was considered women’s work. In fact, if you look closely, most NGOs were run by women at the beginning, often by the wife or the sister of a senior government official. And when the authorities saw me arrive and saw how our following was increasing, they started fearing us.” Baisalov launched the newspaper Demokrat, which is printed by the NGO Freedom House. In Demokrat, he denounced the lack of transparency in public affairs. His positions led him to be arrested several times, including once in 2003 for not having fulfilled his military obligations.6 Such events gave his organization, as well as himself, a great deal of publicity throughout the country but especially in international media and Western diplomatic circles.

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Koalitsia and the ENEMO Transnational Network NGOs like Koalitsia are popping up all over and reflect the transnationalization of the political sphere in post-communist societies. Koalitsia is a cog in a power apparatus with a multilevel structure. The Kyrgyz NGO is part of the ENEMO network, which groups together other East European national NGOs with similar activities, such as the CESID7 in Serbia, the CVU8 in Ukraine, and the ISFED9 in Georgia. ENEMO was created in 2001 in Opatija, Croatia, under the impetus of American NGOs and big foundations such as Georges Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Eurasian Foundation, NDI, and IRI.10 Employees of these NGOs participate in these networks at various levels (national, regional, worldwide). They first take training courses. During seminars, workshops, study tours, and summer schools, ideas are exchanged and people circulate in order to build a common imaginary around democracy and freedom. Thousands of Kyrgyz NGOs provide tens of thousands of jobs, but they also provide a window on new horizons and new conceptions of social life. Circulating and traveling have become social status symbols. Baisalov readily admitted this: “Belonging to an NGO carries financial aspects, of course, like having a salary. But it is not only about the salary. It is also a way of being part of the international world; we travel, we speak English, we meet other young people abroad, and we gain recognition. It also means being one’s own boss and not being dependent on the government.” Training continues with participation in an emotionally charged event: election monitoring. These young activists

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build collective memories with founding events such as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Edil Baisalov was the co-director of an election observation mission in Ukraine in December 2004 for ENEMO. Paired with Peter Novotny,11 head of the Slovak NGO Civic Eye,12 they took part in the Orange Revolution. Baisalov told me how important this experience was in his career and how amazed he was by the events in Kiev. “For me, Ukraine was a founding moment. … I spent several months there as head of the ENEMO mission. It was then that I realized that, on returning, we were going to be able to change things here in Kyrgyzstan.”

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Intellectual Influence: Nonviolent Movements These transnational networks forge their identities in rather vague shared references of freedom, democracy, and nonviolence to ensure the disappearance of authoritarian regimes. Certain works are recurrently used as sources of inspiration, such as the American intellectual Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy: a Conceptual Framework for Liberation. This handbook has circulated widely throughout the world and in a couple of years has become a veritable cult book.13 Gene Sharp gives a general historical analysis of major nonviolent movements and offers instructions on how to “topple dictatorships” using nonviolent methods in order to counter state repression. Elections are an appropriate moment for mobilizing; they are an ideal opportunity for setting protests in motion and highlighting a government’s illegitimacy compared to the people’s legitimacy. In an unbalanced combat situation against a government with strong coercive capacities, Sharp recommends using the same methods as major resistance and civil disobedience movements (no leaders, negotiations with insiders close to the government to intensify divisions, etc.). He suggests techniques for creating doubt among loyal regime supporters. Demonstrators, for instance, may attempt to dissuade police underlings from using force against them by trying to win them over. Groups may organize secret nocturnal poster campaigns ridiculing the authorities or distribute satirical pamphlets or enigmatic text messages aiming to debunk the authorities’ legitimacy. The handbook is supplemented by a documentary that has also become a cult film. Bringing Down a Dictator14 describes the strategy and methods used by the Otpor movement in Serbia. The film shows how to organize communication networks throughout the country, organize and manage demonstrations, and use cultural and artistic means to ridicule the government, and it discusses nonviolent techniques of collective mobilization in order to destabilize security forces.

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It is difficult to analyze the real impact of such ideas, but these NGOs have unquestionably modified the local political game. The changes were made possible thanks to the creation of new political loci. The materialization of opinion diversity is channeled through a very open media space where a plurality of voices can be expressed. Local NGOs are also places where people can express themselves and defend their opinions via various media outlets, such as Internet websites (such as Eurasianet created by the Soros Foundation), press agencies (Akipress, etc.) privately-owned newspapers (MSN, Times of Central Asia, Demokrat, etc.), and privatelyowned television channels and radio stations. Election monitoring thus becomes an additional element for delegitimizing the government. The parliamentary elections of March 2005, observed by Koalitsia, came at a time when Kyrgyzstan was becoming the stage of a major international power struggle. The international media were suddenly interested in this little country where the next color revolution was likely to take place. In the international press, President Akayev gradually went from the status of great promoter of good governance and democracy and American ally to that of a pariah clinging to his power, allegedly propped up by Russia.

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Koalitsia’s Hour of Glory: The Tulip Revolution Koalitsia got involved in the run-up to the elections through its civic participation campaigns. The first, labeled negative, broadcast information about corruption and personal enrichment scandals. In reaction to these various initiatives, Akayev’s administration put curbs on the activities of these NGOs and the media. In particular, it cut off the electricity of Freedom House’s printing press, which published various newspapers. The Kyrgyz government even launched a coalition of NGOs called Assosiatsia to rival Baisalov’s network and to provoke confusion among the general public. The so-called positive campaign then consisted in encouraging citizens to vote and take part in demonstrations. Koalitsia gained the support of other organizations, including the youth movement Kel-Kel (Come-Come) that suddenly appeared on the political scene in December. Kel-Kel was modeled after movements in neighboring countries: Otpor (Resistance) in Serbia, Kmara (Enough) in Georgia, and Pora (It’s Time) in Ukraine. Baisalov was behind its creation and published their manifesto in the Demokrat. He told me, “The movement was even started right here in my office with a Koalitsia worker and a few students.” Koalitsia and other organizations played a role in organizing a number of demonstrations. They contributed to the emergence of the idea that public opinion existed.

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At the time of the first round of elections, Koalitsia deployed several hundred observers dressed in orange, the color of the Ukrainian revolution. The observers publicized the disqualification of candidates and a number of local protests, which were immediately given coverage by major international media. For example, in Kochkor, a town in Naryn province, the Kyrgyz Social Democratic Party candidate, Akilbek Japarov, relied on Koalitsia as well as on the regional NDI representative to spread news denouncing the administration’s practice of favoring a candidate close to the presidential circle. Japarov did not claim to belong to the opposition, yet he organized roadblocks and demonstrations denouncing the local authorities’ partiality. Baisalov regularly held press conferences to broadcast such information, thereby stepping up the pressure on Akayev’s administration.

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Participative Observation in an Election Mission Even before the elections got started, the political atmosphere was explosive in Bishkek. The American ambassador, Steven Young, was reprimanded for interfering in Kyrgyz politics. The government was showered with criticism, in particular by the OSCE election observation mission that was preparing to monitor the election. When we arrived at the airport, we ran into a number of journalists and American and Canadian observers. Hundreds of observers were flocking to Bishkek. The Kyrgyz customs officers, not accustomed to so much activity, watched with interest as OSCE members invited these assorted individuals, who were now supposed to form a united group over and above their national identities, to get into buses to be taken to a luxury hotel in the capital. The OSCE has a permanent mission in Kyrgyzstan, but election observation is run by a distinct office, the ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights), which has its headquarters in Warsaw.15 An election observation mission is temporary and analyses three phases: pre-election preparation and campaigning, voting, and then procedures for counting the votes and announcing the outcome. The ODIHR mission thus sets up its caravan in a country temporarily and tries to form a unified corps with an impersonal power structure. The mission deploys its activity under a common banner with a staff made up of three distinct groups, who must remain neutral and impersonal: the core team, long-term observers (LTOs), and short-term observers (STOs). It is thus a very fragmented and ephemeral entity. Observers form a caravan for the duration of the monitoring mission, which bands and disbands according to electoral episodes in various Eastern European and postSoviet countries.16

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To recruit its staff, the ODIHR depends on the goodwill of fifty-five member states that decide whether or not to send observers. The Warsaw office promotes good governance principles and is intent on incarnating them through its action. A mission must respect certain criteria reflecting its aim of representativeness by balancing the number of men and women (gender balance), nationalities,17 generations, and professions. In fact, the ODIHR only recruits a small number of observers directly and tries not to select only civil servants so that, ideally, a mission is made up of one-third civil servants, one-third people involved in civil society, which means from the tertiary sector (NGOs), and one-third from the private sector. The core team occupies the caravan’s main “tent” or headquarters, which is set up in the capital. The core team does not occupy the OSCE’s permanent mission offices but instead uses separate offices, a sign of the strong tensions that exist between the Vienna-based OSCE and the Warsaw-based ODIHR. While the OSCE acts essentially according to interstate relations, the Warsaw office is a new institution that is trying to free itself from the control of states. The heart of the mission is located at the headquarters, where the core team maintains privileged relations with the Kyrgyz electoral commission and the authorities. It is where campaign and voting analyses are done and where monitoring guidelines are decided. Its work draws on the activities of sector experts based in Bishkek and on weekly analyses provided by long-term experts deployed throughout the country. It is where the information that weighs so heavily on the evaluation of an election is produced and then shared with diplomatic entities and international media. The ODIHR recruits core team members directly. The mission is run by an ambassador or mission head who is assisted by a team of professional election observers. The team is made up of a deputy head of mission (DHOM), an election adviser, and several experts: a legal analyst, a political analyst, a media analyst, a logistics and security analyst, and an LTO coordinator. Depending on each country’s specificities, election missions can also include a minority adviser and a gender issue adviser. Long-term observers (LTOs) are deployed several weeks before election day. They have both an analytical and a logistical role. Over a period of three months, these democratization experts must observe how the electoral campaign is prepared and carried out. They work on the local level with electoral commissions, candidates, political parties, and the media. They are deployed in pairs. The LTOs provide the core team with information from all over the country. During their stay, LTOs also prepare the future deployment of hundreds of short-term observers (STOs), whom they will supervise during the election. Most of the eighteen LTOs deployed in Kyrgyzstan have similar profiles. They often consider themselves “mis-

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sion junkies” (Coles 2007). After working in diplomacy, humanitarian action, and development, they have become professional international electoral expert contract workers. Many of them hope one day to be part of a core team during a future election observation mission. Lastly, the STOs, deployed by the hundreds a few days before the first round of voting, make up the main battalion. The ODIHR’s priority is to send people embodying its model of good governance. It selects mostly young people working in local NGO circles who come from Eastern Europe in order to balance out potential inequalities among the different member states. However, states still play a dominant role in a mission’s composition. Each member state decides to what extent it will be involved by sending a contingent of observers. Each state’s participation thus depends on its view of the country’s or the present election’s political importance. Observer profiles differ according to the mission and each country’s political and administrative culture. There can be civil servants, retired diplomats, students, members of the armed forces, NGO members, academics, and even journalists, all people who have had experience in international cooperation. They are supposed to speak English and, if possible, the local language. The ODIHR also depends on expatriates from member states to complete its contingent.

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The Election Mission: A Multicamp Caravan After a brief rest and breakfast, we were taken by bus to another luxury hotel in the capital for the first briefing. During the initial interactions, the observers were far from forming a unified group, and I quickly noted that boundaries were maintained, especially along national lines. The boundaries were formed by a variety of behaviors, codes, and rules. The first marker involved language. Some people could communicate more easily than others. Those who spoke English fluently easily went beyond national boundaries and mingled, while the others remained with their fellow citizens. Moreover, certain STOs knew each other because they had already participated in this type of experience and were pleased to see each other again. We crossed Bishkek quickly by bus with a police escort, arriving at the five-star hotel located near the Kyrgyz Parliament. The hotel was surrounded by a high, impenetrable fence and had an anti-terrorist-attack security system with a checkpoint at the entrance. The security procedures imposed outside immediately gave the impression of penetrating a fortified camp. In the parking lot, Kyrgyz drivers were chatting among numerous black sedans belonging to the diplomatic corps and white SUVs

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belonging to the representatives of NGOs and international organizations. We could also see news satellite vans bearing the names of major media. At the gates, children begging for money called out to us. The hotel was completely booked and had been for several days. On entering the lobby, I was immediately struck by the noise and the singular atmosphere. Journalists were holding microphones up to Kyrgyz politicians; cameramen were training lights on experts’ faces as they commented on Kyrgyz current political events. Others had put their cameras down and were sitting at the bar or in the lounges. They were having drinks and scribbling in their notebooks as they listened to the confidential information of their local fixers,18 diplomats and expatriates, the connoisseurs of Kyrgyz political life. I spotted many of the internationals I had come across over the years in the country. During the elections, the Hyatt thus became a strategic hub where the information exchanged ended up feeding the general gist of the international media’s opinion of the Kyrgyz elections. The briefing was about to start in an adjoining room. The meeting was for observers only and the little microcosm waited in the lobby to take advantage of the first leaks. The OSCE’s initial analyses gave an indication of the atmosphere of the election. The hundreds of STOs filed into the auditorium, while the core team sat facing them on an elevated platform. A new distinction was immediately obvious in the way people were dressed. The core team members were wearing suits and ties for the men and skirt suits for the women, whereas the STOs, ready to be deployed, were dressed much more casually. This first public ritual was the occasion to display the organization’s good governance model. The head of mission, the ambassador Ljubomir Kopaj, started by reading, in halting English, a brief speech reminding everyone that it was indeed at the Kyrgyz government’s request that the ODIHR was monitoring the elections. He publicly reiterated the organization’s philosophy of neutrality in election monitoring matters and quickly handed the microphone over to Jonathan Stonestreet, an American representing the Warsaw office, who presented the philosophy of an election observation mission. Then came the DHOM’s turn to speak about the Kyrgyz situation. Ian Mitchell, an energetic Canadian, used a PowerPoint presentation to show graphs and statistics giving a detailed analysis of Kyrgyz political life. He introduced his coworkers who, one after another, gave more specific presentations of the political system, the electoral context, the workings of the political parties and the media, the situation of minorities, and women’s participation. The audience listened carefully to these presentations, which enabled them to understand how the organization perceived the workings of the Kyrgyz political system according to normative criteria determined by the

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ODIHR. For example, the mission considered that the Uzbek minority (11 percent of the candidates) and women (10 percent of the candidates) were underrepresented. The organization was thus implicitly promoting the ethnicization of politics. Furthermore, the candidates’ clientelistic practices were denounced in a moralizing speech associating them with forms of corruption. These initial observations, which purported to be objective, already gave an indication of the tone the organization wanted to set for the observation mission. The DHOM then spoke more specifically to the STOs and gave details about their deployment. It was immediately obvious, and not only because of his thorough knowledge of the Kyrgyz situation, that the DHOM was really the one running the mission, whereas the Slovak ambassador was confined to a representative role. Even though the ODIHR publicly claims its intention to support new governance by appointing Eastern Europeans at the head of its missions, the first impressions of the workings of the core team revealed the limits of this approach. In this mission, the most strategic jobs were given to North Americans. In fact, quickly spreading through the ranks of the STOs were comments condemning the passivity of the Slovak ambassador, who seemed to have been turned into a puppet. For its initial assessment, the core team used the work of the eighteen LTOs, who form a link between the core team and the hundreds of STOs. After the general briefing, we were asked to meet the LTOs in charge of our sector to receive more specific instructions. We then stood up and started chatting. I quickly noticed an overrepresentation of Americans, especially due to the number of STOs recruited on the spot. The mission’s composition illustrated how national boundaries remained intact even within the OSCE. It also reflected the tensions between the OSCE and the ODIHR. Indeed, in his speech, the DHOM regretted the absence of Russian nationals among the observers. The Russian government had decided to boycott the monitoring mission of this election19 and condemned the Warsaw office’s independence in regard to Vienna and its partiality in Georgia and Ukraine. This absence called into question a foundational aspect of the OSCE, which was created during the Cold War to structure dialogue between the American and Soviet powers. The Russian boycott threw off the balance among nationalities, and the rank and file quickly noticed an overrepresentation of Anglo-Saxons. Before making up an undifferentiated community, an election observation mission is the continuation of struggles for influence between certain powerful countries. This regional organization forms a political arena where strong antagonisms20 exist between different countries and groups of countries. I went to the meeting of my STO group to meet our LTOs. Carla, a French woman in her forties, had a great deal of international experience.

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Having participated in several missions in Bosnia, Serbia, and Chechnya within NGOs and international organizations, she worked regularly as an observer for the ODIHR and the European Union. Carla was completely immersed in the English-speaking international universe and spoke French with a smattering of English words. She lived in France and traveled all around the world wherever the missions she was offered took her. Her LTO partner had stayed in the Naryn region to prepare our deployment. He was a retired German army officer who had been involved in several international missions of intervention. They had spent several months preparing the deployment of about twenty STOs. We were to work in pairs respecting the criteria of balancing ages, sex, and nationalities. My group was made up of Austrians, Germans, British, Americans, French, Serbs, and Swedes. I met my future partner, who turned out not to be a Swedish woman but instead a Swedish civil servant in his forties (whatever happened to gender balance?). Two American STOs who had been recruited locally had not shown up yet, but Carla started explaining the particular context of the area we would be going to. The climate of the campaign had been tense, dotted with excessive disqualifications of candidates fueled by rumors of vote buying. These events had sparked several demonstrations and protests leading to people blockading the road between China and Kyrgyzstan. In light of the situation, Carla insisted on the importance of respecting certain security guidelines. Finally, one of the missing American STOs arrived and interrupted our meeting. She was a young diplomat who worked at the American Embassy in Bishkek. She remained standing and addressed the LTO directly, flaunting the walkie-talkie in her hand. She explained that she was late because of the explosive situation in the country. She informed the LTO that the other American STO from the American Embassy would not be able to come to the meeting but would be present for the monitoring. She also informed our LTO that they would not be traveling with us since they had to abide by specific security rules. They would take their own car, accompanied by a bodyguard. Before taking her leave, she made sure the embassy’s demands would be respected: she could not be separated from her colleague, and they would monitor the election in the strategic district of At-Bashi where two big names in Kyrgyz politics (Salymbelov and Kasiev) were running against each other. This episode came after we had spent the whole morning listening to speeches on representativeness and balance among nationalities to set an example of model governance. Within our group, John, a young American (thirty years old) who had been sent by the State Department, was embarrassed by his fellow citizen’s attitude. After she left, he even joked about

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preferring the communal atmosphere on our bus. John spoke easily with most of the STOs because he spoke eight different languages and noticeably had extensive experience as an expatriate. The idea that an election observation mission forms a united and uniform international community is hard to defend when put to the test. The influence of various states was particularly palpable. However, national identity was not the only difference, and other distinctions were made along cultural, political, and ideological lines. During informal discussions, boundaries were reinforced by language issues since English was predominant. A retired French ambassador who spoke Russian complained about the hegemony of English; an Eastern European civil servant who barely spoke English worried that she would be unable to complete the forms properly. The first briefing introduced the OSCE’s institutional semantics. Some terms were part of the jargon used in discussing international norms of good governance and did not easily translate into other languages (“agency,” “empowerment,” “accountability”). The use of other terms revealed the influence of American political culture.21 Some of us mastered this vocabulary better than others, which later on determined an observer’s reactivity. After this initial briefing, a buffet was held allowing the hundreds of STOs to mix randomly. The regulars greeted one another and were obviously glad to see each other again. Many spoke about their incredible experience in Ukraine. I struck up a conversation with a group of people who apparently knew each other already. Radivoje G., a young Serb in charge of the NGO CESID told me, “I’m a CESID employee, and I have become an expert in elections ever since the electoral revolution against Milosevic. I did Georgia and Ukraine, and I can’t wait to see what we are going to do here. I’ve done missions for ENEMO in the past, and now I’ve achieved recognition because I’m an observer for the OSCE.” He then pointed out, “We all know each other for the most part because we are like a caravan that comes together whenever there is an election.” In the field, there were indeed close relations among observers grouped under different labels (OSCE, ENEMO, Koalitsia). Before election day, despite the various groups’ public claims of neutrality and impartiality, this little group of observers at least openly shared its intention to participate in Akayev’s downfall. Another STO, Natalia, a young Ukrainian working for NDI in Kiev said, “I work for NDI in Kiev; we worked very hard to bring down Kuchma in Ukraine, and I’m thrilled to be participating in this OSCE mission to do the same thing to Akayev. We need to bring civilization to these Kyrgyz because it will not happen without us.” Despite the mission’s official representatives’ speeches and

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even before our deployment, certain observers expressed feelings and intentions that were a far cry from the OSCE’s professed neutrality.

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The Deployment of Observers After a long bus ride toward the Naryn region, we parted ways in Kochkor to go to our assigned districts. The town was immersed in the election spirit, with billboards everywhere showing the faces of the various candidates. Small groups gathered haphazardly around the bazaar to listen to the fiery speeches of agitators in charge of persuading voters. After lunch, our group had to disperse. Our two LTOs had scoured the area to find drivers and translators to accompany us. At the door to the restaurant, drivers chatted in front of a row of old European cars, while the young women translators were talking, all squashed into a single car. After several hours of driving, we arrived in a small town called Chayek, where our district’s electoral commission was staying. The town, high in the mountains, was practically cut off from the rest of the country by huge quantities of snow that had fallen in recent months. Furthermore, the district was split in two because it was impossible to get to the Akhtala valley from Chayek. Despite its remoteness, the various candidates had come to campaign there. The day before the voting took place, despite the bitter cold (−4°F), the main street was filled with people walking around, and others stood talking in front of the administrative building in the town center. For our short stay, we were given bed and breakfast in a local home that was part of the Swiss NGO Helvetas’s network. The first night, I had the opportunity to speak with my Swedish colleague, our team, and our hosts. My partner took his mission very seriously, and he explained his personal motivations for being an observer. He avoided speaking to our Kyrgyz hosts and refrained from expressing his opinions about the situation in the country. He was convinced that our action played a role in developing democracy worldwide. According to him, this type of action contributed to spreading our values and our institutions, which were superior to all other regimes. For him, it was a necessary condition for instituting stability and economic success in these former communist countries. He had already been an observer, in particular in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution, and he told me how pleased he was to have participated in that historic moment. We also talked about the Kyrgyz elections with our hosts, who unanimously expressed their desire for change in their country given the general decline in the standard of living and the excessive wealth of a tiny minority. Our host, a former school principal explained, “The various

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candidates in our district are all the same in terms of political ideas. They all have one thing in common: they are obscenely rich and they want to be a member of Parliament to protect their wealth and their businesses.” The next morning our real task began. We prepared ourselves for braving the cold, and we put on our observer uniforms, a white tabard bearing the OSCE logo. The first day was devoted to an overview of the district and to setting up the itinerary for observing the various polling stations the next day. We informed the electoral commission of our arrival and inquired about any possible issues. The commission chairman told us about a few problems concerning the workings of the electronic counting system installed by the UNDP (Shailoo System), but overall he was serene. More than ten candidates were in the running in the district. We walked around in the streets to get a feel for the general atmosphere. Since it was impossible for us to get to the Akhtala valley, we decided to limit our observations to a few polling stations near Chayek. We went to Ming Kush, a village known during the Soviet era for its wealth owing to its uranium mine. We drove along a road following a stream, where we saw rows of abandoned houses and a run-down summer camp. We found the village completely deserted. We stopped in front of the offices of the former kolkhoz. Smoke was coming out of the chimney, a sign, we hoped, of human presence. The members of the electoral commission were huddled in one of the offices. They were all bundled up in heavy coats and hats and seemed to be waiting for the end of the day, frozen like statues. We got the feeling we had run into the only people who had not been able to leave the village. The chairman talked to us about the elections as a non-event and instead wanted to draw our attention to the village’s state of abandon and its despair. The closing of the mine had left a ravaged environment and environmental problems that neither the government nor international organizations addressed. The old man spoke with nostalgia of the village’s vitality during the Soviet era and talked about various diseases some of the children now suffered from due to radiation. This brief discussion gave us the chills, and we soon left the small group behind us. We then visited a few polling stations where everything seemed ready for the big day. This high mountain region had been deserted by its inhabitants who fled massively toward warmer, more urban and more agricultural zones in the Chui valley. Our driver explained that some candidates had even organized buses to bring former villagers back to vote. On election day, observation was broken down into three phases. We started by watching the procedures for opening a polling station. We then visited a dozen polling stations during the day. Members of the commis-

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sion sometimes came to ask us for advice about how to do certain things, but we could not help them because we were not allowed to interfere. The visit to each polling station was generally limited to a half hour, making it difficult to observe irregularities directly. We returned to Ming Kush and were surprised by the change of atmosphere. Several observers (ENEMO, Koalitsia) and candidate representatives were present. We attended the polling station closing procedures. We followed the chairman as he brought the electoral commission’s results to Chayek. All of these visits made it possible to gather data on voter turnout and the voting process. Monitoring continued all night long at the electoral commission, which centralized all of the electronic counting operations.22 Our observations were then written up in a report that was quickly sent to the two LTOs. Lacking a fax, we used an enormous satellite telephone to call Helmut and Carla with our meager observations. The monitoring work was relatively tedious and monotonous. Through the interpreter and the driver we sometimes heard suspicions of fraud and rumors of vote buying, but we did not witness any such irregularities. As it did all over the country, the election took place in an atmosphere that was both tense and festive. The many candidates organized meetings, invited popular singers and often held banquets for their supporters. The large number of candidates made the election very competitive. An important aspect should be pointed out here to understand Kyrgyz political logic. In most districts, few candidates claimed to belong to the opposition. Some ran under the banner of the new presidential party (Alga Kirgiztan), whereas the majority of candidates claimed to be independent, even though their careers indicated their proximity to the administration and their economic power. The battle took place essentially among political elites who had once held or still held administrative or political positions (former governors, senior government officials, former ministers, or government representatives). The opposition consisted mainly of former ministers or ambassadors who had been ousted from power. Other candidates ran only as “businessmen” campaigning on their individual success. All of these different candidates were fighting for the leadership of their districts without any real ideological differences. What they had in common were their local roots and their wealth. They all came from the region they were running in, even if they lived in the capital. During campaign rallies, the candidates touted their political and personal financial capital that was likely to help local inhabitants. These parliamentary elections revealed the increasingly intense political competition that existed for gaining access to Parliament. The competition was not embodied by the existence of political opposition to President Akayev but rather through the proliferation of parties and the personal-

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ization of political office. In the districts in the Naryn region, almost all of the candidates claimed to be close to the administration, yet many belonged to different parties.

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Return to the Capital and Debriefing The day after the elections, we returned to Kochkor to meet up with the other STOs before heading back to the capital. We were impatient to find out the general trend of the election. As soon as we arrived at the marketplace in Kochkor, we heard people talking about contested victories, fraud, mobilization, and protests among the population. The situation was tense throughout the country. During lunch, the STOs confessed that they had not witnessed any fraud in particular. However, there were bitter battles in every district. The candidates belonging to the presidential party did not always come out on top, revealing the erosion of political control. The attempts within the president’s circle to get his candidates elected failed, as they were up against financially independent politicians on the upswing. During lunch, STOs talked about rumors of ballot stuffing, fraud, and vote buying. Candidates reportedly tried to outdo each other in supplying food, coal, and vodka, as well as organizing banquets for their supporters. There was a general feeling of caution about the election’s validity among the observers, even though no observer directly witnessed anything inappropriate. The LTOs received information from the capital confirming the tense atmosphere throughout the country. In the restaurant, at another table, about twenty men were celebrating their candidate’s victory. The candidate’s representatives (ichmerendi) made a toast to their candidate’s health and reminded everyone that they needed to mobilize to ensure the final victory in the second round.

The Press Conference Once an election is over, the press conference and the preliminary report are two crucial phases in an ODIHR electoral mission. Organizing and prioritizing the information is the most important. Elections are often tainted by irregularities, but the way they are presented makes all the difference. An election expert explained to me, “Giving our opinion to the government is important, but even more so to the international community and the media. One of the key questions during the core team’s discussions is how to report fraud and irregularities. The political impact is not at all the

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same if you say it was a widespread practice or a marginal occurrence.” The organization and prioritization of information determines the legitimacy of an electoral process. After the press conference, the first press release sets the general tone of the pressure put on the government. In the case at hand, the press release emphasized the destructive atmosphere of the campaign and underlined the noncompliance with international standards of democratic elections. The American government, supported by certain Western governments, increased the pressure on the government before the second round by calling on the Akayev administration to respect its international engagements. During the debriefing after the first round of voting, an exalted atmosphere prevailed given the turn of political events in Kyrgyzstan. In the halls, a Dutch STO called out, “The revolution is underway like in Ukraine. Democracy will triumph.” This declaration provoked enthusiasm among a segment of the crowd, while others expressed disapproval of such a biased remark. In the conference room, the core team reiterated the organization’s neutrality toward political events and began presenting its overall observations. Even though most observers were not supposed to express their opinion, it was obvious that many were hoping for a new color revolution and intended to participate one way or another in ending Akayev’s fifteen-year reign.

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Cocktail Hour: The Communion Ritual of Democracy Promoters Everyone got together one last time for cocktails in a luxury hotel in the capital before leaving the country. Observers were present as well as Western journalists, diplomats, and expatriates from major Western embassies. I felt like an outsider in a small world where everyone knew each other well and had been meeting up over the years at various political events since the early 1990s. This transnational elite has been sharing experiences since the end of the Cold War. Many had participated in various missions in ex-Yugoslavia and been involved in various democratic transition projects in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The cocktail hour was a moment for them to reminisce and reaffirm their common values and codes. It was the occasion for this little world that feels caught up in the winds of history to be once again the center of attention in international media and to participate in spreading good throughout the world. This transnational elite working primarily in diplomatic and international circles (NGOs, international organizations, consulting) feels it is partaking in building a better world and global democratization.

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At the end of the cocktail hour, I came across the young polyglot American with whom I had joked during the initial briefing. Searching for something we might have in common, he asked, “Do you work for the fifth bureau (secret Intelligence department), too?” I did not catch his allusion right away, and I talked about my work for a public research institution. He smiled and told me, “I did a PhD at Harvard a couple of years ago, too. You have to realize that the world has changed since September 11. After the Vietnam War, people on university campuses were wary of collaborating with the State Department, but the situation is no longer the same. Now the threat is everywhere. That is why I work for the State Department. Our countries need to work together and exchange our experience and information to fight terrorism.” I decided not to get drawn into a discussion about his reasons for taking part in the present mission or this microcosm’s motivations in the various countries hosting election observation missions. A few days later, the second round of voting took place in an extremely tense climate and led to massive protests disputing the legitimacy of the results. Certain candidacies were disqualified, and various instances of fraud were reported. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the opposition leader, lost in his district and accused the government of rigging the election. The conclusions of the election monitoring were clear and final: the election was tainted by numerous irregularities and fraud. Koalitsia, ENEMO, and the OSCE deemed that the elections did not meet international standards. The new parliament was widely viewed as illegitimate.

Communion of Contentious Actors: Opposition Coalition, Koalitsia, and Kel-Kel After the results were announced, various actors joined forces to dispute the outcome of the legislative elections. The opposition coalition was not alone. Koalitsia also played a major role in organizing popular protests. Along with Kel-Kel and the opposition coalition, Koalitsia organized large demonstrations calling for the elections to be invalidated. Even before the second round of voting, numerous protests disputed the legitimacy of the first round. The opposition coalition PMK (Kyrgyz People’s Movement) demanded the president’s resignation and organized marches on the capitol. The government responded by arresting demonstrators and closing down media considered hostile. The government first lost administrative control over the towns in the south where there was strong popular mobilization. On 23 March, thousands of people demonstrated in Ala-Too Square, demanding that Akayev

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step down. The protest was organized by two youth movements: Kel-Kel and Birge. The demonstration ended in a violent clash with nearly one hundred men wearing white baseball caps and armed with clubs. Edil Baisalov was arrested during the demonstration. On 24 March, another massive demonstration took place in Bishkek. It started from the MCN clinic, run by one of the opposition leaders, Dr. Nazaraliev. The crowd stormed the parliament and the presidential compound, breaking through the overwhelmed security lines. Koalitsia, Kel-Kel, and the opposition coalition were three actors that federated the different forms of discontent present throughout the country and channeled people’s exasperation, picked up by the Azatik (Free Europe) radio station and private newspapers such as MSN. They participated in creating and spreading symbols (colors, t-shirts, flags, etc.) that were supposed to embody a new collective consensus in the public space. The youth movement Kel-Kel, however, did not play as important a role as Otpor did in Serbia. It was formed late, and the initiative stemmed mainly from Koalitsia, one of the main organizers in the protests. A peaceful march23 on Bishkek was organized in collaboration with the opposition coalition in order to force the government to give in. Kurmanbek Bakiyev and the coalition relied on powerful local support in the south of the country to organize strong mass mobilization. Popular demonstrations, a practically unheard-of phenomenon in Kyrgyzstan, enhanced the people’s newfound legitimacy in the face of an increasingly isolated government. The opposition was a contextual movement centered on a single goal: to bring down Akayev. After a few days of confusion and President Akayev’s flight from the country, Kurmanbek Bakiyev convened the former and the newly elected parliaments. They appointed him acting president. Bakiyev no doubt made use of local political dynamics and other resources24 that had nothing to do with international aid to win his position. However, he also capitalized on the conclusions of the ODIHR, the actions of Koalitsia and ENEMO, Kel-Kel’s enthusiasm, and Western pressure to come to power. By presenting himself as the new champion of democracy, he in fact simply used the complex apparatus of democratization aid and a favorable international context as a political springboard. After what came to be known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev decided not to dissolve Parliament, knowing that his party had no chance of winning the elections. Instead, barring a few exceptions, he upheld the election results despite their disputable nature, on the grounds that it would help to stabilize the country. However, he did pledge to give priority to organizing presidential elections to reinforce his own legitimacy. The election monitoring actors backed his approach and offered to take part in

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overseeing the future presidential campaign in July 2005, which was to strengthen democracy.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

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15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23.

Opposition coalitions in the ex-USSR are often made up of man-woman teams. http://www.enemo.eu. Her score was very low, and she retired from politics. The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is presided by Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state under the Clinton administration. See also P. Shishkin, “Ripple Effect: In Putin’s Backyard, Democracy Stirs,” The Wall Street Journal, 25 February 2005. See Zamira Sydykova’s article in Respublica, Bishkek, 3 March 2003. Centar za Slobodne Iz’bore i Demokratiju (Center for Free Elections and Democracy). Committee of Voters in Ukraine. International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy. The International Republican Institute is the American Republican Party’s foundation and run by Senator John McCain. He received a grant in 2009 from the National Endowment for Democracy as part of the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship program. www.ned.org/fellowships/ past-present.../mr-peter-novotny. Obcianske Oko (Civic Eye) played an important role during the 1998 legislative elections leading to Vladimir Meciar’s departure. It can be downloaded free of charge in various formats and in twenty-six languages from the Albert Einstein Institute. http://www.aeinstein.org/. Documentary by Steve York (2002), 56 minutes, York Zimmermann Productions. See http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/films/bdd/index.php. In November 1990, the signatories of the Charter of Paris for a New Europe (which was to become the OSCE in 1995) decided to create the Office for Free Elections, which was later called the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Since 2002, the OSCE has conducted election observation missions in all member states (France, USA, etc.). There should be no more than 10 percent of one nationality among short-term observers. In journalists’ jargon, a “local fixer” is a resource person in a country who can serve as a translator and as an informant. The Russians even went so far as to conduct a parallel monitoring mission directed by Rushailo. Russia later opted for another strategy by sending observers en masse to Azerbaijan (September 2005). The Russian delegation even published its own press release on top of the ODIHR communiqué. Later, the Russian government caused the scheduled monitoring mission to fail in its country (December 2007). For example, the word “democratization” was spelled with a ”z” instead of an “s” as in the British spelling, and the use of the expression “carousel voting” (having a group of people vote several times in different polling stations) was not familiar to all. The UNDP financed the implementation of an electronic system, the Shailoo System, for counting votes in national elections. Similar marches on the capitol were organized in other countries where color revolutions had taken place.

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24. Some analyses emphasize the role of drug money and other trafficking to explain how Bakiyev came to power.

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References Les Etats-Unis: A la Conquête de l’Est. 2005. Directed by Manon Loiseau. CAPA Production. Bringing Down a Dictator. 2002. Directed by Peter Ackerman. NDI Production. Carothers, Thomas. 1997. “The Observers Observed.” Journal of Democracy 8 (3): 17–31. Coles, Kimberley. 2007. Democratic Designs: International Intervention and Electoral Practices in Post-War Bosnia Herzegovina. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press. Dezalay, Yves, and Bryant Garth. 1998. “Droits de l’Homme et Philanthropie Hégémonique.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales No. 151–52. Electoral Observations: Actors and Practices. 2006. Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR. Hayden, Robert. 2002. “The Dictatorships of Virtue? States, NGO’s and the Imposition of Democratic Values.” Harvard International Review 24 (2). Hertzfeld, Michael. 1992. The Social Production of Indifference. Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracy. Oxford: Berg. Institute for Democracy and Electoral System. 2002. Voter Turnout from 1945 to Date. Stockholm: International. International Observer Guide, Kyrgyz Republic, Parliamentary Election, 2005. OSCE/ODIHR. Kyrgyzstan: After the Revolution. 2005. Asia Report, ICG Report. 4 May. Macfall, Michael. 2002. “The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship.” World Politics 54 (2): 212–44. Nazaraliev, Jenishbek. 2006. Dvizhenie Mass Ili Stihia Tolpi: Prava O Kirghizkoï Revolutsi (Mass Movement; or, The Truth about the Kyrgyz Revolution). Bishkek. Petric, Boris, ed. 2008. “Stratégies Américaines aux les Marches de la Russie.” Hérodote No. 129. Sariev, Timur. 2008. “Chah Kirgizskoï Demokratii” [A Game of Chess for Kyrgyz Democracy]. Bishkek: Salam. Sharp, Gene. 2002. From Dictatorship to Democracy. A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. Boston: Albert Einstein Institute. ———. 2007. “Kyrgyzstan’s ‘Tulip Revolution.’” Central Asia Survey 27 (3/4).

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– Chapter 7 –

THE TRANSNATIONALIZATION OF POLITICS

_ As we say here, President Akayev left on the same plane he flew in on. He came from Moscow and he went back to Moscow.

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—Joldosh

I returned to Togolok Moldo for the early presidential election in July 2005. This time I decided to film the election monitoring.1 The atmosphere in the village was summery, and the villagers did not seem to take an interest in what was at stake. Most of the Manbetov family had left town and moved up to the jailoo for the summer. During the events in March 2005, the village had remained calm. The inhabitants followed the events on TV. When I went up to the lake, the old shepherd told me he would have liked to vote: “If I could go down to the village, I would vote for Bakiyev. He’s a former kolkhoz chairman. He is for agriculture and livestock breeding. He is going to stop the destruction of our economy. We can’t keep cutting down trees without planting new ones. He is going to put things back in order.” This feeling was widely shared by other villagers. One evening, I watched a televised debate at Zamir’s house opposing Kurmanbek Bakiyev and Akbarali Aitikeev, a completely unknown candidate. The event was a novelty and amused the whole family sitting around the TV set. The face-off quickly turned to the former prime minister’s advantage. The candidate running against Bakiyev did not seem to have a chance. He was incapable of expressing his ideas clearly. Zamir was for the leader of the Tulip Revolution and flared up as he spoke about his one-night rival: “Can you see this man running a country? Impossible! He can’t even get a complete sentence out.” After a good meal, we parted company until we met up again a few days later on election day. – 131 –

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Anthropology of a Fraudulent Election I found the polling station exactly as it had been before. The various players were there and scrupulously respected proper procedures. The space was clearly divided, with the electoral commission on one side and the observers on the other. Two young female members of local NGOs represented Koalitsia. Two ENEMO observers came by briefly during the day; the OSCE, however, had not deployed enough observers to cover this high mountain valley. Monolov, the former communist and kolkhoz chairman who used to be a representative for Akayev and his party, Alga Kirghizstan, had recently become the new president’s representative. He was now a member of his party, Ak-Jol. He sat at the observers’ table representing Bakiyev as candidate. The other candidates had no observers. Even though there was little at stake, the tension rose perceptibly throughout the day. Everything was going smoothly, but few citizens came to vote. The armed guard in charge of watching the door abandoned his post and took a nap in his car. Inside, everyone was on edge. The telephone rang several times. A regional administration official asked to speak to the person in charge. The chairman of the electoral commission did not appear to feel concerned and handed the phone to Monolov. Someone on the other end was yelling. After a while the commission chairman left the room, and Monolov took his spot. He was on the phone for a long time. Turnout was too low, and the person on the phone urged him to find solutions. Before passive Koalitsia observers and an embarrassed commission chairman, the village strongmen were now sitting at the electoral commission’s table. Monolov set the example to follow. After making sure that we did not have the intention of airing our film immediately, he went to the ballot box and inserted a dozen ballots. He invited his associates to do the same. We openly filmed the few people who took turns stuffing the ballot box. Other villagers returned to the polling station to vote on behalf of their father, their mother, or their wife. Instead of attending the show, the chairman of the electoral commission, in a sweat, decided to step outside. The Koalitsia observers remained calm and acted as though they didn’t understand what was going on. After the votes were counted, the electoral commission announced the results out loud. The people in the room applauded when the voter turnout was given (75 percent). Kurmanbek Bakiyev arrived in first place with 90 percent of the votes. During the evening, various TV channels reported identical figures nationwide. In the village, few people came to watch the counting of the votes. In the polling station, the satisfaction of Mononlov’s little crew was patent. Some tried to convince us that the most important thing was that the village had shown its allegiance to the new ruler and could thus hope the

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central government would have a positive attitude toward them. The former kolkhoz chairman took the commission chairman by the arm and offered him a ride to go celebrate the victory. Everyone hopped in Monolov’s big white Volga and drove to the local administration building, where a banquet awaited them. The electoral commission’s report, as well as ENEMO’s and Koalitsia’s reports, made no mention of any irregularities at this polling station. Nationwide, the reports were almost identical. Edil Baisalov declared during a press conference on TV that the elections had been carried out “according to international standards and reflected the Kyrgyz people’s choice.” The OSCE mentioned a few minor irregularities at the end of its report but considered the elections a model for the whole region. On the way back, I came across several election observers. Heloise, an experienced observer for the OSCE told me, “Everything went well. It was very calm. But still, we don’t get it: there’s a big problem. Until 5:00PM we had recorded a very low voter turnout, and then when it was finished the turnout was practically 75 percent. Something isn’t right. It’s impossible to turn things around that fast. Some major monkey business went on somewhere.” The different election observation organizations (Koalitsia, ENEMO, OSCE) were aware of the ballot stuffing thanks to their statistical monitoring tools. However, it was not time for neutrality, but for regional political reality. The organizations decided to minimize the phenomenon and deemed “the elections a definite improvement respecting the Kyrgyz people’s choice.”2 They thus intended to support the political process that was underway to show that aid for democracy could be successful in a postSoviet country. This time, Koalitsia, ENEMO, and the OSCE contributed to legitimizing the power of the new president of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Electoral Observation and Local Dynamics Election observation is one of the major resources appropriated in the national political battle. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who projected himself as the consensual democracy candidate, used the system to rise to power. After the elections, the opposition coalition did not hold up for very long, and Bakiyev gradually pushed aside his main allies. The new government quickly used practices and methods Bakiyev had condemned when he was in the opposition. He did away with elections for local office, passed a law regulating NGOs, muzzled the private media, and instituted a legislative system based on party lists to avoid political fragmentation. He modified the constitution in 2008, inspired by Russian political life rather than by democracy promoters. He asserted the need to restore “the power

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vertical.” His presidential party, Ak-Jol, followed the example of Vladimir Putin’s political party, Edinaya Rossiya (United Russia). Regional dynamics had limits, and a certain number of Tulip Revolution leaders (Otunbayeva, Beknazarov), who were also from the south like Bakiyev, were pushed aside as well. Bakiyev gave priority to appointing people to key jobs who could increase his financial influence. In the civil society sphere, Koalitsia was also a political springboard for Edil Baisalov. The consensus around democracy crumbled when faced with the realities of exercising power. Edil Baisalov quickly disagreed with the new President Bakiyev and decided, in turn, to enter politics.3 The National Democratic Institute immediately cut off Koalitsia’s funding. Instead of changing its president, the American foundation decided to launch a rival NGO, Taza Shailoo (Clean Elections). During the 2007 parliamentary campaign, Taza Shailoo deployed hundreds of observers. Baisalov joined the opposition within the Social Democrat Party (SPDK) and accused the government of preparing to rig the elections.4 He decided to leave the country because of the threat he was under and was granted political asylum in Sweden, where he wrote a blog5 on Kyrgyz politics. The political climate had deteriorated considerably.

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A Changing Political Personnel: From Appointees to Elected Officials In fact, a set of reforms initiated by international aid led to a radical shift in power from the presidential apparatus to Parliament, provoking the erosion of a system where the central government chose and appointed all the political personnel. The first parliamentary elections took place in 1995. Representatives were elected for five years. At the end of the 1990s, the shift in power was represented by certain representatives’ open resistance to presidential decisions6 and especially through a general reorientation strategy of political elites striving for electoral legitimacy. With the state’s disengagement, the president no longer had a political and administrative apparatus at his disposal allowing him to satisfy the aspirations of elites by granting them appointments. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, thousands of candidates competed for eighty seats. One candidate’s senior adviser told me, “Now when you are a civil servant you can be fired from one day to the next. That is not the case for a representative with immunity. … Plus, now Parliament has become the stage for battles between different lobbies, and we need to be there to defend our economic interests. My candidate is also interested in the immunity his status will give him in order to protect his private busi-

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ness ventures.” This logic was embodied by a general craze for elected positions especially among “biznessmen” wanting to protect their assets.

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Becoming a Deputat: An Exemplary Political Battle In March 2005, among the thousands of candidates, few presented themselves as belonging to the opposition. The majority claimed to have affinities with the governing administration without necessarily being part of the president’s party. Nevertheless, there was fierce competition for seats in Parliament. It was revealing that the first protests in March 2005 began in one of the districts in the country’s north, in Kochkor,7 with a great deal of unexpected contention against the local administration, which was trying to secure the election of former Kyrgyz Communist Party secretary (1961–85) Turdakun Usubaliyev. At over eighty-five years old, the former dignitary was hoping to keep his stronghold and become the president of the Jorgorku Kenesh as the most senior member of the new assembly. The president’s endorsement and experience in the state machinery were not enough. With no more resources to redistribute, he could not stand up to the new political practices. The other even more significant battle took place between Salymbekov and Kasiyev in the At-Bashi district. The regional governor of the Naryn oblast resigned from his political and administrative functions to run in the district where he was born. Salymbekov at the time was a member of the pro-government party Alga Kyrgyzstan and was facing several candidates, including Naken Kasiyev, belonging to political parties claiming to be close to the president. Kasiyev was the regional governor of the Osh oblast and founder of the Elet party. He was also from the At-Bashi region and still had strong ties there. The battle thus pitted two former senior civil servants with similar political and administrative capital against each other. Salymbekov was able to mobilize his financial power while Kasiyev had to settle for his bureaucratic influence. The democratization process has led to the development of clientelism, a clientele expecting to benefit from some form of redistribution. On the local level, the state no longer had much to offer, and a political clientele could not be created simply through local or tribal identities (Gullette 2001). One organizer of a representative’s campaign in the Naryn region told us, “I often come here during the summers to maintain relations with the people here. You need to give your time and eat and drink with people. Plus, I financed the building of a monument, and in summer we organize equestrian games with prizes. We also help the school. You know, you have to give in order to receive people’s trust.”

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Political leaders must build their legitimacy by redistributing their wealth. Elections have become a significant moment for redistribution to ensure voters’ support. Chombet Baigazakov was once a delegate to the Supreme Soviet. He is now peacefully retired in At-Bashi. He told me, “Now, people love election time. You have to realize, today it is obvious that everything can be bought in politics, both jobs and votes. Elections have become the country’s favorite pastime. The candidates try to outdo each other. They send coal, truckloads of gasoline, cases of vodka, television sets, and refrigerators. Others hand out mobile phone cards. There are even some who give out money. You’ll see, the market is open!” The confrontation between Kasiyev and Salymbekov offers an interesting example that helps clarify the new situation. Salymbekov’s landslide victory (63 percent) was due to his financial strength. Hundreds of youths from his district worked at Dordoy, and during the campaign Salymbekov organized political meetings at his bazaar. He was even accused of running buses on election day so his voters could return to At-Bashi to vote. The development of clientelism thus favors biznessmen who maintain new ties of dependence with a clientele. Askar Salymbekov incarnates a new figure in Kyrgyz political life whose social and political rise was built on different levels. His training and experience within state institutions were important factors. To be legitimate, a politician needs to represent a town and redistribute wealth. These nouveaux riche, who are also known as oligarki (oligarchs) or novi kirgizi (new Kyrgyz), convert their financial capital into political capital and join in the competition for elected positions. The countless candidates contesting the parliamentary elections fit this new political profile. Political parties play a minor role, and citizens vote above all for an individual. Among these new politicians, the bazarkom were elected in large numbers in the March 2005 elections. Salymbekov was elected in At-Bashi, his brother Mamatbaj in Bishkek. Bajaman Erkinbayev, the owner of the Kara-Su bazaar, was elected in Batken. Jyrgalbek Surabaldijev, the owner of the Kudaibergen used car market in Bishkek, was elected in Bishkek. The owner of the Oberon market, the Orto Sary bazaar, and a shopping mall, Kubat Bojbolov was also elected in Bishkek, as was Kamchibek Joldoshbayev, the owner of the Besh Sary market. For the most part, these politicians control captured resources since Kyrgyz society no longer produces much of anything. Appointed positions would put these novi kirgizi too much at the mercy of the trials and tribulations of a presidential administration that can make and break political and financial fortunes. A legislative term has become a coveted position for protecting one’s economic activities from the arbitrary nature of politics.

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Political Transhumance, Opposition, Marginalization, and Exile Instead of radical change, the constitution of the 2005 Parliament confirmed a long process started in 1991. Beyond political differences, each session is characterized by intense negotiations to show allegiance to the new administration. A few major political figures chose to leave the country, while others, such as Salymbekov, went over to the new government. Many parliamentarians said to back Akayev or who made their fortunes under his reign suddenly changed sides and joined the new president, Bakiyev. Political transhumance is the main characteristic of the workings of Kyrgyz politics. In a factionalist system that was once characterized by regions taking turns ruling, politicians now remain anchored in the regional space but change positions on the political chessboard. Political changeovers are always an opportunity to negotiate or even call into question the economic strength of legislators who refuse to pledge allegiance to the new power.8

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Political Practices and Regional Factionalism In this context, the logics of regional factionalism shifted somewhat, even if they continue to hold substance in the Kyrgyz political imaginary. Factionalism continues to be put forth as an explanatory factor for everyday behavior as well as to analyze the basis for political decisions or modes of distributing power. In everyday conversations, distinctions between southerners9 and northerners10 constantly crop up. It is a way of claiming to represent the real Kyrgyz (taza Kirgiz). Evoking a character trait can be a quality or a flaw. The Kyrgyz from the north use a pejorative term, sart,11 to talk about people from the south, underlining their mixing with Uzbeks, or even more pejoratively call them uzbeki. The Kyrgyz from the south are also derogatorily called akarlik, “he who turns his back to the mountains,” because they are socially and economically turned toward the Fergana valley. The people in the capital also emphasize the religious dimension by associating southerners with Islamism. The northerners also condemn the oshskis’ merchant aspect. They are considered tightfisted, whereas northerners are reportedly more interested in culture and are more extravagant. In the south, they stigmatize northerners’ assimilation to Russian culture and the risk of losing authentic Kyrgyz traditions. The Kyrgyz from the south call northerners “Kazaks” or even “Russians” to underline their acculturation, their detachment from Islam, and their consumerism. There

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are many anecdotes characterizing the structural tensions in the society. A young student told me a popular joke: “A car is driving along with a Frenchman, an American, a Kyrgyz southerner (Oshski), and a Kyrgyz northerner (Chuiski) on board. All of a sudden, the Frenchman opens a bottle of wine, tastes it, and throws it out the window. The American of Scottish descent does the same thing with a bottle of Scotch. So the Kyrgyz northerner wonders what he could do. Why did they throw away what their country holds most dear? He thinks about it and finally throws his southern neighbor out the window. It means that even though we hate each other, they are all we have.” This regional dimension is recurrent in everyday conversations in the capital. Ruslan told me about his experience as a salesman at the Dordoy Bazaar: “You can recognize people from the south right away because they always drive a hard bargain. The last time I bought vegetables without haggling, and the salesman asked me where I was from. He said it was obvious that I was from the north because I didn’t bargain, and he added that he was fed up with all the southerners arriving in our capital.” The changeover of political power is experienced by many citizens as an invasion of people from the south. A taxi driver expressed his annoyance with the situation: “Have you noticed the growing number of people coming from the south? I’m going to tell you a story: Someone arrived at customs at lunchtime. There were a lot of people and the post was open. A government official arrives and asks the man working why he hasn’t gone to lunch. The man answers: ‘I know that if I go have lunch, an Oshski will take my place.’ Right now there is a strong feeling in the capital of an invasion from the south.” Such statements and social distinctions exist in political discourse as well. The government often refers to the need to combat such rhetoric. The government often presents itself as the best guarantee of national unity. The president chose an entourage with a strong regional dimension, being careful to distribute positions of power fairly among regional attachments. Nonetheless, the government’s opponents criticized its action, accusing it of regionalizing recruitment and favoritism. These rationales inevitably extend into the exercise of power and the makeup of the political personnel. On the national level, the president organized the exercise of power around two principles. He surrounded himself with trustworthy people often belonging to his family and his town. Nevertheless, the state requires political and administrative personnel that enjoy some degree of legitimacy nationwide. The president must always be careful to maintain a balance between different regional factions to avoid being accused of favoritism. It is a conception of power that excludes an exclusive monopolizing of power. The presidential administra-

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tion made appointments in such a way as to show that power was really exercised by people from different regions, but privatization and the rise in the number of elected offices under Akayev had altered this game of tug-of-war between regional factions.

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The New Role of the President and Appointed Political Personnel With the increase in the number of elected offices and privatization, the president’s action has been redefined. The presidential apparatus (prezidentski apparat) is the institution that ensures the workings of Kyrgyz bureaucracy. In the years immediately following independence, the presidential apparatus was the main locus of power. A small team of advisors whose influence was not necessarily reflected in the official organizational chart played a major role in selecting the political personnel and in the exercise of power. Tashkul Kereksizov’s case offers a good example. He held different key offices successively (head of the customs agency, special advisor to the president, head of state property committee). He was in charge of recruiting the political personnel while organizing a system that more or less auctioned off jobs within the political and administrative apparatus. A former minister explained, “I think Kereksizov was the godfather of Akayev’s son (Ajash Ata). He was very close to Akayev and had a lot of influence on the country’s evolution because he had a strong influence over appointments.” His position earned him the (unofficial) nickname of kashaliok (wallet) among political insiders. A representative told me, “Kereksizov was the kashaliok for the north of the country. He tried to make sure that he knew personally the civil servants recruited for strategic positions. There was one for the south of the country, too. There was no getting around Malabayev. If you wanted to obtain a position or the slightest permit to do something there, you had to grease his palm.” The Kashaliok recruited people in exchange for loyalty to the presidential administration and also made it possible to fill the presidential coffers by negotiating compensation with the beneficiaries of privatization. But the system changed a great deal with economic privatization. The bureaucracy’s influence then derived from the procedures for controlling various flows.

From Communism to Keminism This new social logic took root when Kyrgyzstan decided to privatize its economy on a massive scale. The presidential entourage was suspected of

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taking advantage of privatization to build a society where private property was legal and could be transferred. An article entitled “From Communism to Keminism,” published in the private newspaper Respublica, describes how the president’s entourage got their hands on part of the country’s economy. According to the newspaper, it was no longer the Communist Party that exercised power but the Kemin faction, Kemin being the name of President Akayev’s native town. Akayev’s wife tapped into a share of international aid through her foundation, Merim. Their son, Aidar Akayev, was in charge of economic development with his brother-in-law Adil Togonbayev.12 After a couple of years they became high-profile biznessmen and hired international consultants to set up a complex system of shadow companies. They became the owners of a telephone network (Bitel), several media and television stations (Pyramid TV, Kanal 5), and numerous privatized companies. In the president’s entourage, some people were rewarded for their allegiance with political promotions. Others were penalized as potential economic or political rivals. Akayev’s entourage controlled a private economy that generated a sizeable rent but did not necessarily create social relations of dependence. This rentier economy ended up chipping away at the president’s legitimacy, as he was increasingly abandoned by the biznessmen-demokrats who controlled economic territories where ties of dependence were created with the population.

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From Keminism to Teyitism The same logic continued under Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s rule (2005–10). Although Bakiyev’s wife apparently played no role, the new president relied heavily on his five brothers and his son, whom he appointed to various positions. His son, Maksim, who owned a business in Lithuania, quickly returned to Kyrgyzstan after his father was elected. He was in charge of looking after the family business ventures, and he took over Akayev’s son’s companies. He managed business relations with the United States’ Manas military base,13 in particular supplying aviation fuel.14 He bought several banks and businesses in very favorable conditions, but this rentier economy was not enough to create conditions in which to exercise power. One of the president’s brothers, Jusup Bakiyev, who died in 2006, occupied a key post as the minister of emergency situations. The role of Kashaliok was given to another brother: Janish Bakiyev had control over appointments in the administration. Another of the president’s brothers, Kanibek Bakiyev, held an administrative position in the south that did not reflect the full extent of his power. The local population called him “the Khan,” underlining his inescapable influence over the political man-

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agement of the region. He appointed new senior officials from home and reshuffled the economic cards in the south. Another brother, Adil Bakiyev, was appointed special envoy to Beijing in charge of trade relations with China. Lastly, Marat Bakiyev was the ambassador to Germany, another heavyweight in trade relations with Kyrgyzstan. This family management quickly earned the president the new nickname Baks,15 underlining his strong thirst for money. In the post-soviet context, despite the family’s undeniable importance, power was exercised via the deployment of political personnel. The idea that there is a widespread market for buying government positions should not overshadow forms of recruitment that are not based solely on money. Not all political and administrative positions are up for sale because not everyone has access to that job market. The entire political staff was appointed and/or co-opted. A position of power presumes an essential aspect of legitimacy: a well established form of capital to gain access to the market. The person should preferably be an ethnic Kyrgyz in accordance with the new social norm in effect, and he or she should have been educated and trained within Soviet and post-Soviet institutions. Lastly, strong local roots reflecting a certain social influence are also essential. The president applied this tried and true logic from the Soviet era by mainly appointing senior government officials governors of their native regions. These appointments corresponded to a specific logic of representation and followed widespread social practices. However, the economy was privatized, and the country experienced the emergence of nouveaux riche who intended to participate in the exercise of power as well. In March 2010, an enormous scandal tainted the Kyrgyz presidential family. The presidential administration created a new institution to get around the power of elected officials. Bakiyev had radically reformed the workings of the political administration in the Kyrgyz State. He created the Innovation and Investment Agency and put his son Maksim at its head. The institution had the advantage of centralizing all of the investments and loans destined for Kyrgyzstan. The president’s son, who was closely associated with a Latvian banker, Vladimir Belokon, as well as with Boris Berezovski, used transnational financial networks to gain control of a large number of companies. The general public found out in the press that the president’s son had a contract with an international financial consulting company, MGN Capital. The Kyrgyz State had apparently given the company $300 million to manage from a loan granted by Russia. The company reportedly invested the money in speculative financial markets. The scandal became public because the Italian courts launched an international warrant against the owner of MGN Capital, Eugene Gourievitch, who was accused of laundering money for the mafia. This scandal showed

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the coming together of transnational elites who operate above national boundaries to launder a variety of financial flows.16 Kyrgyzstan is thus far from being a country isolated from the realities of globalization.

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The Political Change in 2005: Revolution, Overthrow, or Coup? Paradoxically, the privatization of resources and the increase in the number of elections made the circulation of power much less fluid. Each time, political change called into question certain economic positions. In March 2010, while the government was celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Tulip Revolution, the commemoration turned into a protest movement due to several political and financial scandals involving, among others, the President’s son. Many Kyrgyz rejected the system that had been in place since 2005. Bakit told me, “The new president is worse than his predecessor, and he is stealing the revolution from the people. Besides, I no longer believe it was a revolution, it was more of a coup.” More and more people who participated in the Tulip Revolution in March 2005 were rejecting the term and preferred calling it a coup (perevarot). The Kyrgyz general public was trying to understand what had happened in 2005. At the time, two theories dominated. The first privileged the idea of a spontaneous popular movement and spoke of “a natural awakening of civil society” fighting against tyranny. The color revolutions were even said to make up the fourth wave of democratization in a long process affecting the post-socialist area after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The second theory, in contrast, underlined the role of external influences, in particular the role of American soft power with its troops of NGOs. Conspiracy theories were invoked to explain political changes. For Gleb Pavlovsky (2006), one of Vladimir Putin’s political advisers, these were not revolutions but “overthrows,” “coups” (perevarot) aiming to undermine once and for all Russia’s geopolitical influence in what it calls the near abroad. The conspiracy idea consisted in thinking that secret maneuvers were behind the different social processes at work. In general, conspiracy theories are used to explain decline. In the Russian case, the conspiracy theory makes it possible to explain Russia’s loss of influence in its near abroad. It confines the Kyrgyz people to the role of passive spectators of their own destiny. These simplistic visions paradoxically have similarities in the identical notions they call forth: internal/external, foreigner/citizen, local/global, natural/ artificial, endogenous/exogenous, national/international, and so on. These categories do not help to understand political change, as the intensification of transnational ties involves major shifts in power.

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The Tulip Revolution episode raises a certain number of questions about the workings of political power. The term “revolution” implies challenging the legitimacy of the political representatives and a change in the principles on which it was based. Discontent led to a new popular uprising in April 2010. The opposition organized several demonstrations and ended up storming the presidential apparatus.17 President Bakiyev fled to the south of the country before taking refuge in Belarus. Roza Otunbayeva became the interim president and appointed Edil Baisalov chief of staff. The arrival of a new government in April 2010 immediately called into question the forms of personal enrichment and privatization of a certain number of resources by prominent politicians. The departure of the president and his brothers did not solve the problem. In the south, major politicians viewed the installation of the new government as a threat to their emoluments. This situation provoked a major conflict in Osh in June 2010. The upheaval of the political and economic order turned into an ethnic pogrom against Uzbeks (Petric 2010), with clashes claiming over four hundred deaths. Otunbayeva took office as interim president until 2012 and first called parliamentary elections in October 2010. Kyrgyz citizens thus returned to the polls to change the constitution and to elect a new parliament. The ODIHR sent its eighth election observation mission to Kyrgyzstan since 1992 and deployed hundreds of observers. More than three thousand candidates representing close to thirty political parties ran for the 120 seats. Edil Baisalov, who created his own party (Aikol El), was not elected and performed miserably at the polls. For his part, Askar Salymbekov did not run. His brother represented the family on the list of Roza Otunbayeva’s new presidential party, the SPDK. The family empire’s political transhumance was once again successful. After the elections, the electoral observation missions expressed their satisfaction. Morten Hoeglund, an ODIHR member, declared, “I have observed many elections in Central Asia over the years, but this is the first election in which I could not predict the outcome.”18 The Kyrgyz president, the new champion of democracy widely supported by the international community, proffered a self-congratulatory message on TV: “We can be proud of the fact that these elections were completely different to those we have seen before.” No single party won more than 10 percent of the vote. It was mainly a stream of prominent local figures who were elected in their districts. These biznessmen-demokrats were gearing up for intense negotiations with the presidential apparatus to form a new government in a position to rule. The October 2011 presidential election finally handed the presidency to Roza Otumbaeva’s prime minister, Almazbek Atambayev. The leader of

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the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SPDK) thus became the country’s fourth president, while two of his predecessors were in exile, Akayev in Moscow and Bakiyev in Minsk. His opponent, Adakhan Madoumarov, levied accusations of widespread fraud and government intervention against his campaign and urged the OSCE election monitoring mission to invalidate the results. In its customary diplomatic doublespeak, the ODIHR mission concluded that the elections met international standards, despite numerous irregularities. The report announced, “The 30 October presidential election was conducted in a peaceful manner, but shortcomings underscored that the integrity of the electoral process should be improved to consolidate democratic practice in line with international commitments. Candidate registration was inclusive, giving voters a wide choice, and the electoral campaign was open and respected fundamental freedoms. These elements, however, were overshadowed by significant irregularities on election day, especially during the counting and tabulation of votes.”19 The political situation had changed and the election took place in a different international context. Controversy surrounding the outcome did not lead to widespread protest as it had in March 2005, when local revolts had been picked up by the international media, encouraged by Western chancelleries and the entire transnational democracy promotion apparatus. Election monitoring has nevertheless come to the fore as an inescapable part of Kyrgyz politics.

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Notes 1. E. Hamon and B. Petric, Democracy@large (KG production and CNRS Images, 2005). E. Hamon and B. Petric, Democracy@large (KG Production, 2005). Documentary film. 2. See the OSCE’s and ENEMO’s reports. 3. He ran in the 2007 parliamentary elections. 4. While visiting a national printing house, Baisalov stole a ballot to show that the government was preparing to rig the elections. As a result, a warrant was issued for his arrest. 5. http://baisalov.livejournal.com/. 6. In 2001, several representatives denounced a secret agreement signed with China fixing the Sino-Kyrgyz border. Akayev reportedly ceded several thousand acres. Representative Beknazarov launched a protest movement. 7. See ICG Report. 8. After 2005, several members of parliament openly opposing Bakiyev were forced into exile. (Bakit Bojbolov, Bakyt Beshimov, Jusupzhan Jeenbekov, and Omurbek Abdrakhmanov settled in the United States.) 9. “Juzhanin” in Russian or “Tushduktuk” in Kyrgyz. 10. “Severanin” in Russian or “Tunduktuk” in Kyrgyz. 11. A term used until the beginning of the twentieth century for an urban population that had lost its ethnic and tribal affiliation.

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12. He was Bermet Akayeva’s husband. He now lives between Moscow and Almaty. 13. David S. Cloud (2005), “Pentagon Fuel Deal is Lesson in Risks of Graft-Prone Region,” New York Times, 15 November. 14. The press spoke of more than $100 million in annual revenue. 15. Baks is a common/slang term for “dollars.” 16. See articles in the San Francisco Chronicle. 17. More than eighty people were killed in this takeover. 18. Robin Paxton (2010), “OSCE says Kyrgyz Elections Democratic and Vibrant,” Reuters, 11 October. 19. ODIHR report following the October 2011 presidential election. See http://www.osce .org/odihr/elections/86926.

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References Abelès, Marc. 2008. Anthropologie de la Globalisation. Paris: Fayard. Collins, Kathleen. 2002. “Clan, Pacts and Politics in Central Asia.” Journal of Democracy 13, No. 3 (July): 137–40. ———. 2006. Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Das, Vena, and Deborah Poole. 2004. Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe: SAR Press. Hansen, Thomas, and Finn Stepputat, eds. 2001. States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Post-Colonial State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Paris: Exils. Knazev, Aleksandar. 2006. Gosudarstvennii Perevorot: 24 Marta 2005 V Kirgizii. Bishkek. Jones Luong, P. 2002. Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions and Pacts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———, ed. 2004. The Transformation of Central Asia: States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Monsutti, Alessandro, and Boris Petric. 2009. “New Political Arenas: International and Non-Governmental Organizations, Foundations, Think Thanks.” Tsantsa 14: 6–17. Nye, James. 2004. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs Press. Pavlovsky, Gleb. 2005. Kyrgyzsky Perevarot (The Kyrgyz Overthrow). Moscow: Europa. Radnitz, Scott. 2010. Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Rey, Alain. 1989. Revolution: Histoire d’un Mot. Paris: Gallimard. Sewell, William. 1999. “Three Temporalities: Toward an Eventful Sociology.” In Terence J. McDonald (ed.), The Historic Turn in Human Sciences. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 245–80. Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sassens, Saskia. 1998. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: New Press. Sharma, Aradhana, and Akhil Gupta, eds. 2006. The Anthropology of the State: A Reader. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Taguieff, Pierre-André. 2005. La Foire aux Illuminés: Ésotérisme, Théorie du Complot, Extrémisme. Paris: Mille et Une Nuits. Verdery, Katherine. 1998. Transnationalism, Nationalism, Citizenship and Property: Eastern Europe since 1989. American Ethnologist 25 (2): 291–306.

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– Conclusion –

THE KYRGYZ LABORATORY AND GLOBAL POLITICS

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Kyrgyzstan has been a major laboratory of good governance, democracy promotion, and economic liberalization since 1991. Various international and transnational powers have contributed to installing this new political conception, which has been imposed on a number of countries in transition. The analysis of the Kyrgyz experience helps to understand the extraordinary transformations these programs have brought about in the way of conceiving the political sphere in the context of globalization. In two decades, an assortment of various forces have projected themselves onto the Kyrgyz social space, turning it into a sort of globalized political arena in which new actors attempt to influence social reality. International institutions, NGOs, foundations, and aid agencies of the major powers have taken part in the coproduction of the new Kyrgyz political reality. One of the main consequences has been the implementation of reforms to modify the procedures for selecting political personnel by holding legislative and presidential elections. With four presidents since 1991, several political upheavals, and the formation of a parliament, Kyrgyzstan stands out as unique in the post-Soviet world. In most of its neighboring republics, the Karimovs in Uzbekistan, the Nazerbaevs in Kazakhstan, and the Rakhmonovs in Tajikistan have ruled since independence. The members of the parliament do not reflect the diversity of political forces, and legislators do not draw their legitimacy from the polls. Many questions remain as to the nature of the political regime in Kyrgyzstan. Anthropological analysis does not purport to offer a normative judgment that would grant this country the sacrosanct label of “democracy” sought by so many states. Evolutions in Kyrgyz politics nevertheless offer – 146 –

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ideal material for fieldwork to investigate an increasingly frequent occurrence in the world: the meeting between a state under construction and a body of actors that participate in social change. The reforms initiated by the so-called international community reflect major shifts in the organization of the political order as much in the way of envisioning sovereignty and legitimacy as in the procedures for selecting its political personnel and in the way the exercise of power is organized. This former Soviet republic in Central Asia emerged from the Soviet experience by choosing to open wide to the outside, thus corresponding to the liberal ideology in force around the world. The main consequence appears through a certain transnationalization of power—in other words, a multiplication of links formed on a global scale in all areas of social life. Politics cannot be dissociated from organization of the economy. The economic orientation largely inspired by structural adjustment policies has provoked a major crisis in the Kyrgyz economy, disengagement of the state, and a huge debt to donor agencies. Not only livestock breeding but the entire productive apparatus has collapsed, and citizens at various levels have developed transnational ties that are redesigning social relations. In two decades, Kyrgyzstan has become a society of traders, which means that society that has become increasingly dependent on external factors. Although the Merino sheep was decimated during the 1990s, as I discussed in the introduction, the livestock economy has not completely disappeared. While it has become much less central than in the previous system due to its increased independence from the state, it has also become increasingly more responsive to individual investment and savings strategies that take into account local economic realities. Remittances are also being used to form new herds of livestock. These livestock are much more diverse and include local species of sheep used for meat, as well as horses. I have discussed the emergence of these various flows, describing the preference for developing trade with China with the emergence of two huge bazaars that occupy a major place in the regional economy. I have mentioned the importance of international aid, with a broad array of institutions and NGOs injecting millions of dollars through various programs to reform the country. I spoke of the emergence of a new form of labor transhumance and the importance of temporary emigration abroad for jobless Kyrgyz citizens. It is more difficult to study the importance taken on by the opium road and drug traffic from Afghanistan that transits through southern Kyrgyzstan to flood the European market. All these exchanges and this mobility are redesigning Kyrgyz society. Kyrgyzstan is thus intersected by a multitude of flows that are characteristic of a number of major globalization trends.

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The most striking political symbol is without a doubt the unusual organization of defense, ensured by a multitude of actors with interests that are sometimes diametrically opposed. It is the only country in the world that hosts both a Russian and an American military base on its soil. The major regional security organizations (The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Central European Initiative, NATO, OSCE, etc.), which are sometimes even at odds, have a presence there and regularly announce increased deployment of their action in Kyrgyzstan. However, the country does not merely submit to external pressure. The very fact of conflicting presences enable it not to fall under the domination of one single power and offers the young state the opportunity to design a new form of sovereignty by exploiting the diversity of actors that would like to come to bear upon its fate. Kyrgyzstan, a hinterland country pulled in different directions by all these influences, has become the stage of international rivalries. International organizations (the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, WTO) and regional organizations (the European Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the OSCE), as well as major powers (such as the United States, Russia, and China), large international foundations, and NGOs, all compete in their desire to influence the country’s future. The various flows and influences running through Kyrgyzstan nevertheless create tensions in the social fabric that have repercussions on national politics. The transnationalization of power can be seen particularly at election time. The various political forces display different attitudes toward the manner of regulating the major flows that traverse the country. Election monitoring crystallizes these contradictions and becomes a resource to legitimate or dispute one’s position in the political order. The political forces seek to capture this resource to compete in the national political battle to modify their position. International and transnational actors are thus just as involved in national politics. The various elections have, in fact, been characterized by the same practices without producing the same conclusions or the same behaviors among observers. Election monitoring is not a neutral and objective assistance program that is completely detached from Kyrgyz politics. It intervenes in the political sphere and induces shifts in power. The people—the basis of democratic legitimacy—are no longer the only keepers of electoral sovereignty. Election monitoring forms a power apparatus that participates in legitimizing or delegitimizing political power. The 2005 and 2010 electoral episodes confirmed the transformation of Kyrgyz political life, which is increasingly embedded in multilevel political issues. Former local power dynamics were characterized by regional

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factionalism. Regional factions fought for favors from the central power in Moscow to establish their influence in Kyrgyz political life. But after twenty years of independence, these dynamics have become increasingly complex due to the emergence of a transnational political sphere in which a whole set of actors (governments; local, national, and international NGOs; foreign foundations; multilateral organizations; and economic actors) participate in power struggles by injecting resources into the Kyrgyz society. Two political parties now occupy the political chessboard, although it is difficult to clearly identify what sets them apart ideologically. Ok Jol, former president Bakiyev’s party, claims to be the nationalist party, but it is mainly associated with the southern part of the country. The SPDK, the party of the current president, Atambayev, claims to have a more social orientation, but in Kyrgyz public opinion it is considered as the party with a strong base in the north. Regional factionalism thus continues to characterize perceptions of the political conflict in Kyrgyzstan, even as it is reorganized in the new context of globalization. The political transhumance of legislators clearly shows that regional opposition is more of a political representation than an insurmountable division. Furthermore, the SPDK government’s handling of the anti-Uzbek pogroms that claimed over four hundred lives in June 2010 in the country’s south indicates that ethnic nationalism constitutes an element of legitimacy shared by Kyrgyzstan’s two main political parties. Another outbreak of unrest in the south is therefore likely in the near future. The two main parties also do not differ in their attitudes toward donor policies regarding the promotion of democracy and good governance. These global norms and the various projects are viewed as resources that are reappropriated locally. The various political actors compete for them mainly to stay in power or conquer it. The injection of these material and immaterial resources is not merely a matter of a norm imported from abroad. Democracy promotion can be considered an international and a transnational resource that local actors attempt to capture to use in their battle in the Kyrgyz political arena. In Kyrgyz society, democracy promotion and, more generally speaking, the international aid industry are not the only resources that can be captured. The sudden emergence of a bazaar economy is a sign that the predominance of an import trade and a market economy has equally important social and political implications. Manufacturing and organizing available resources within the society (livestock breeding, agriculture) are no longer the main economic activities. These are instead importation and trade,1 which have become the two economic activities that are essential to the new social relations. These economic activities are thus also linked to

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logics of resource capture. The figures of the biznessman and the bazarkom embody these logics of appropriation and indicate the change in political legitimacy and the state’s role in regulating social life. Beyond its specificity, the Kyrgyz laboratory symbolizes the emergence of a new type of political space in the world. A certain number of states have distinguished themselves in the way they organize their sovereignty, their legitimacy, and the exercise of power. They are characterized by the collapse of their productive economy and the perpetuation of strong, multiple, and complex foreign presences. Countries such as Montenegro and Bosnia in Europe, Honduras in Latin America, Tajikistan in Central Asia, as well as certain African countries such as Rwanda and Benin, or Asian countries such as Timor-Leste, Laos, and Cambodia, are also affected by the projection of global politics2 onto their territory. All these states, which the international community classifies as in transition, post-conflict, or post-socialist, have the particularity of being faced with a new form of dependence with respect to global politics. They face new forms of influence that do not necessarily involve the action of a major power attempting to impose its influence on their territory. Various institutions intervene in a process of coproducing their social reality. With their charitable foundations, world powers—such as the United States, on the one hand, and China and Russia, on the other, but Muslim countries as well—deploy their techniques of influence to modify social relations in these societies. This game between the major powers already existed in the time of empires, particularly in the Great Game in which the Russian and British empires contended for supremacy in Central Asia. The contemporary situation, however, is different from that great game, in which a state power conceived its influence through territorial and military conquest, followed by the direct political administration of the various political spaces integrated into its empire (protectorates, condominiums, mandates, etc.). Clearly, today major powers no longer conceive of their influence solely along these lines. The state no longer has a monopoly on influence, and certain institutions (NGOs and foundations) play a significant role. There is hence a transformation of power, with a whole set of prerogatives delegated to regional or international organizations that play a central role in the social life of these countries in transition. Good governance and democracy promotion are excellent examples to show how these new forms of influence are organized at the global level. The political situation in Kyrgyzstan is thus not an isolated phenomenon. Kyrgyzstan is at once a laboratory of global politics and an example of a political form that is multiplying throughout the world. Election monitoring offers a concrete example of this global governance, for it affects the very heart of political organization by contributing

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to the formulation of their sovereignty and their legitimacy. The rise in the number of transnational election monitoring networks and coalitions (Koalitsia, ENEMO) is part of the affirmation of a transnational power apparatus, with international institutions such as the OSCE, as well as the European Union or the African Union, along with local, national, and transnational NGOs. The political events in Georgia and Ukraine, but also more recently in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, have illustrated the importance that international and transnational election monitoring have acquired in the domestic politics of a number of countries. Such mechanisms affect the very essence of the political order and modify the functioning of traditional national political systems. It is in this regard that global politics has led to the transnationalization of politics that characterizes the contemporary situation we know today. The deployment of these new institutions is not, however, an indication of the universalization of democracy. Rather, it is more of an affirmation of the spread of a new transnational power apparatus. The laboratory of Kyrgyzstan is an invitation to reflect more generally on the presence of these various influences that are constraining and liberating at the same time. On the one hand, politics is organized according to standards that are increasingly uniform. On the other hand, its increasing complexity merely reveals the importance of resource appropriation that enable this type of political space to play a role in today’s globalized world. These logics can be a way of building sovereignty by exploiting the rivalry among the various powers that are eager to control the fate of such societies. This complex game prevents them from being dependent on a single neo-imperial power, but still makes this sort of political space highly dependent on the outside world, lending a particular hue to the exercise of power and national political life. It is clear that local actors in both the government and the opposition are not passive and tap into these external resources contextually and opportunely to take or maintain power. This phenomenon cannot be considered simply as proof of a new form of domination of developed countries over underdeveloped countries but instead requires us to reflect on the diversity of political forms today. The transnationalization of power is, moreover, a circular process. Election monitoring, for instance, is no longer a system reserved solely for countries in transition. In the past few years, the practice has also taken hold in well-established western democracies, such as during the last French and American presidential elections. Carrying the process to its logical conclusion, a political scenario could even be imagined in the near future in which the legitimacy of an election is contested in a Western European country by an international election observation mission made up of Russian, Kyrgyz, and Kazak observers.

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The historical situation of the Kyrgyz Republic is interesting because it is confronted with the strength of the forces of globalization that promote the universal liberalization of the circulation of people, ideas, and goods. These forces are not limited to the neoliberal economic ideology. Other ideological forces that are sometimes very contradictory promote free trade simply to benefit from it. They are founded on a common argument that the free circulation of ideas, goods, and people necessarily leads to peace and social harmony. Such general circulation requires no regulation or control. Some believe that all trade tariffs should be lifted, others that religious freedom should be permitted, and still others that workers must be allowed to circulate freely. In all cases, it is an invisible hand that would ensure general wellbeing. Kyrgyzstan is a laboratory for this conception of good governance. The country has opened wide its doors to various flows that have transformed its social space. This situation has led to deep-seated change in social logics and is embodied in forms of rising territorial and social inequalities. And yet the process has not, for all that, caused the collapse of the state. The countless, and often contradictory, hodgepodge connections enable it to develop a certain form of sovereignty and a singular fashion of exercising power. The various bureaucracies can thus be the first to take advantage of this system due to the multiple ways of handling borders and the flow of resources. Opening up a country’s borders is reflected in the importance that the various regulation services have taken on. Various bureaucracies of control thus play a major role in the regulation of these new exchanges, such as customs for merchandise and the police for individuals. The incursion of external flows has shaped economic territories that are appropriated by certain social forces. These can be the space of the bazaar for the importation of goods or the media space to manage the flow of media images, or, again, religious, military, humanitarian, public health, and countless other spaces. A wide variety of local intermediaries try to gain social benefits from the capture of such resources. However, there is a segment of the social body that is not in a position to capture these new resources and must resign itself periodically to seeking work abroad with one obsession: to return home and make it in their own society. Kyrgyz workers have thus joined the ranks of those participating in “globalization from the bottom up” like Hispanic remesas working in the United States or sub-Saharan and Maghrebian populations in Europe. These changes in scale transform social spaces, and the division of labor occurs increasingly at the regional level among various countries, and even at the global level, while social relations are completely altered by these new seasonal transhumances.

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These phenomena are particularly visible in remote political spaces like Kyrgyzstan, which no longer produce any resources. Certain geographers even emphasize geographical isolation to make the claim that these countries remain on the fringe of world exchanges. The Kyrgyz laboratory demonstrates the opposite: these political spaces are very much integrated into the logics of globalization. We are hence a far cry from an exotic tribal world in which regional factions are pitted against one another, fighting for control of remote mountain areas closed off from the rest of the world. As these countries radically liberalize their societies, such territories on the periphery of globalization even occupy a very specific role in the various forms of world exchanges. The description of the Kyrgyz situation inevitably leads to reflecting on the role of the state. This notion is commonly used to describe the division of the world into countries in spite of the diversity of forms that political spaces can take on. The uniform legal definition of the state nevertheless obscures a diversity of political situations, as, for instance, the reality of the Chinese state is certainly not the same as that of the Kyrgyz state. We are not moving toward a uniform, globalized, concentrated, and centralized political order either, and the 185 states legally recognized by the United Nations cover vastly different political realities. Max Weber’s classic definition of the nation-state, centered on the monopoly of legitimate violence, does not necessarily help to understand the diversity of contemporary political spaces. We are embarking on a world history in which regulation is founded on embedded transnational powers whose forms are only beginning to be institutionalized, in which social reality is constructed by a complex web of local and global actors. But that is another story that goes well beyond Kyrgyzstan.

Notes 1. I have discussed legal trade, but the flow of heroin from Afghanistan has taken on a significant role in power relations, particularly in the southern part of the country. 2. See Abelès Marc. 2008. Anthropologie de la Globalization. Paris: Fayard.

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– Afterword –

FROM KYRGYZ FABULA TO ETHNIC APOCALYPSE?

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_

During the original writing of this book, I did not have time to comment on the bloody ethnic pogrom that took place in June 2010 in southern Kyrgyzstan. I did not witness these events directly, but the time between the writing of this book and its translation into English has nevertheless given me the opportunity to impart my interpretation of this tragic occurrence that caused over four hundred deaths. This event unfortunately falls into the logic of an ethnonationalistic process that has been building up since 1991, and that I examine within these pages. Although it is impossible to make a causal analysis, these anti-Uzbek pogroms seem to be linked to the weight of the legacy of the Soviet nationality policy in Central Asia and, at the same time, the rationale of globalization, including the neoliberal structure of governmentality coproduced by the various international donor agencies active in the country for the past twenty years. On 10 June 2010, an altercation between groups of young people in the city of Osh quickly escalated into interethnic rioting. In the politically instable and tense environment following the forced departure of President Bakiyev in April, a rumor began to spread throughout the country’s second largest city: ethnic Uzbeks1 had allegedly raped a young Kyrgyz woman. The story was propagated via mobile phones and messages that rapidly began to call for retaliation. In a few days, “Uzbek hunts”2 resulted in over 420 deaths, along with many wounded, several raped, and massive destruction of property, which provoked a mass temporary exodus of Kyrgyz citizens who claimed to be or were branded as Uzbek. – 154 –

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This outburst of violence took most observers by surprise, with the exception of those who were already secretly preparing confrontation with the Uzbeks. Generally, regional conflict specialists focused their attention on the Ferghana valley as one of the potentially explosive Islamist areas where a sudden outbreak of violence could engulf the entire region. The Ferghana valley scenario did not take place, and religion did not serve as a mobilizing factor in Osh. Above all, ethnic identity was the key driver for fueling violence between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. The sequence of events now seems relatively clear, and several trials and international reports have identified a number of responsible parties. Rather than interethnic confrontation, these events were ethnic pogroms against the Uzbek population in the south of the country. Heavy suspicion weighs against the close circle of former president Bakiyev, the best-known figure of which is the mayor of the city of Osh himself. The sudden ousting of this group from national power prompted them to stir up violence and even organize it through some state bodies (army, police, the courts, etc.) that remained loyal. Although such contribution has been established, it does nothing to explain how violent mobilization ended up making sense to a large swath of the population that chose to participate in and/or to legitimize hunting down Uzbeks. The post-conflict situation even shows a form of national consensus among Kyrgyz elites. Whether from the North or South, these Kyrgyz elites do not hesitate to legitimize violence against Uzbeks and assert their Kyrgyz ethnonationalism in one voice. Similar violent and sudden ethnonationalist conflicts have also been observed in Africa (Geschiere 2000) and in Europe (Gossiaux 2002) since the end of the 1980s. They are in no way a resurgence of past ancestral hatreds or a form of tribalism, and I agree with others that they are linked to a form of neoliberal governmentality (Comaroff and Comaroff 2010). This type of governmentality legitimizes the construction of an ethnonationalistic political order in which the state is a coproducer of a reality, along with NGOs and international organizations that support and help to build this vision of social order. Contemporary ethnic violence emerges in societies where ethnic differences are not based upon a clear opposition between two groups. The Kyrgyz and Uzbeks have lived together since long ago in southern Kyrgyzstan. They have formed close ties through multiple social exchanges and share a cultural proximity. Both are Sunni Muslims; they intermarry and speak a Turkic language. Their ethnic identities are based on differences shaped during particular periods according to radically divergent political contexts. Since then, the social representation of difference has been redefined through different labels (Barth 1969) within a very dissimilar political context. Kyrgyz ethnonationalist ideology has gradually been

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overturning the social order by giving primacy to ethnic Kyrgyz citizens over other national groups. This political vision has consequently brought about a new image of the foreigner, or rather a category of second-class citizen. This group consists of Uzbeks, Russians, and others, but also concerns a number of citizens of mixed marriage who do not fit within these ethnic categorizations. This ideology and these categories often end up producing exclusion and marginalization. The historical legacy is important, but explains nothing or very little. Until the nineteenth century, distinctions between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks were based on the major distinction between nomad (Kyrgyz) and farmer (Uzbek). Changing ways of life generally caused individuals to change their ethnic label. Social reality became more complex with the Russian military presence in the region. The reading of the society by the Russian, then Soviet, colonial administration had a strong impact on identity-related phenomena. The range of ethnic labels progressively began to disappear. They first began to vanish during censuses (especially during the Soviet era), and then on identity documents. The main remaining ethnic and national categories would then serve to establish Soviet power in the national republics, a process that did as much to construct a vision of ethnonational history as it established various forms of institutional and social recognition. The most significant disappearance was the “Sart” identity, which refers to the urban population of Central Asia. This identity symbolizes the mix of different ethnic groups in the urban environment. Soviet power interpreted the Sart group as the emergence of a bourgeoisie in Central Asian societies. Today, no one claims the Sart identity anymore. However, graffiti appeared during the pogroms on walls in the city of Osh: “Out with the Sarts!” This stigmatization is a call for the purity of the Kyrgyz nation and touches once again upon the urban fabric of the population, which symbolizes the diversity and mixture of its origins. Throughout history, ethnic difference did not, in itself, cause a problem, and the different groups lived together in various sociopolitical contexts without any form of identity conflict. Ethnic differentiation becomes problematic as soon as the political system begins to use ethnicity as an instrument to question the legitimacy of groups or people who have privileged access to resources or political power. A political system founded on ethnic references therefore engages forms of hierarchy and inequality between different citizens and groups who live in the same society. The current reality of the Kyrgyz Republic depends strongly on the Soviet heritage where the concept of nationality guided the division of the USSR into national republics and distinguished citizens by their nationality. Each republic was considered a political territory of a nation in a context where the communist ideology organized consensus. Censuses therefore played a decisive role in making this vision an objective reality.

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This way of viewing society consisted in showing that there was a Kyrgyz majority in the Kyrgyz Republic. Power is distributed according to this vision of political legitimacy. In the city of Osh, the Soviet administration classified the majority of citizens as Uzbek, because at the time, for ideological reasons, any reference to Sarts had to be eliminated, as it was associated with the emergence of an urban bourgeois culture. The administration categorized the populations living in rural space as Kyrgyz. Various Soviet policies strove to provide indisputable scientific evidence for this interpretation of society that was to be made up of various nationalities. The Soviet vision encouraged the emergence of a national conscience that was closely associated with a republican territory. At the time of Perestroika, the liberalization of public speech spawned a proliferation of nationalist rhetoric across the USSR. In the Kyrgyz Republic, various movements demanded strict implementation of national preference. Based on the impression that the Kyrgyz were second-class citizens in their own country, several movements demanded more power for the Kyrgyz in their republic, where multiple nationalities dwelled. Uzbeks living in the South then became particularly stigmatized. These city dwellers, with their obvious economic success, were perceived negatively by the Kyrgyz majority. Their dominant economic position aroused the envy of Kyrgyz who were mostly confined to rural areas and faced problems of overpopulation, as well as a shortage of housing, land, and water. It is in this context that the Osh riots broke out in 1990, causing several hundred deaths before the Soviet army managed to restore order (Tishkov 1995). Court cases have made it possible to analyze the progression of events. At the time, this conflict, like the one of 2010, began following a rumor of rape in a general context of tension over resources. Today in conjunction with this conflict, “Jigit”3 groups are mentioned: Kyrgyz who come from the countryside and descended upon the city of Osh to take over the homes and stores of rich Uzbeks. After independence in 1991, interethnic relationships have evolved considerably. Rural exodus, as well as the social and political mobility of Kyrgyz, changed relations between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, but the idea of a relationship grounded in inequality began to grow. The “Uzbek issue” strikes a sensitive chord at the national level. The exacerbation of the ethnic dividing line between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks is now directly associated with the distribution of economic and political power. The concept of ethnic identity is used by the new Kyrgyz government as well as by new ethnic Uzbek leaders. Independence has concretized a political model that values ethnic/national affiliation. The official name of the country is the Kyrgyz Republic, but, despite a desire to demonstrate a commitment to the idea of a citizens’ republic, strong ambiguities immediately surrounded the choices made.

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The new government of President Akayev drew on the nationalist wave following Perestroika to build a new ideology where the nation is not political but ethnic. The Kyrgyz Republic has gradually become Kyrgyzstan: the land of the Kyrgyz. The new ideology has concrete sociological implications. It inevitably legitimates the supremacy of ethnic Kyrgyz citizens at the expense of others in a society where diverse populations live together. There are populations that have been present for several centuries, such as Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Uighurs, but also those who arrived at different periods in Russian and Soviet history (Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Meskhetians, Koreans, Armenians, etc.), and their children, begin to be increasingly viewed as foreigners. It is not only the ethnic censuses that must demonstrate the supremacy of one ethnic nation, but also the democratic vote that has to confirm it. I have explained how the first Kyrgyz president, Askar Akayev (1991–2005), implemented a policy of Kyrgyzification, which has gradually affected the political process as well as the privatization of economic resources. He wielded an ethnonationalist rhetoric based on the worship of the national hero: Manas. In this way, backed by certain international organizations and NGOs that funded a variety of programs aiming to glorify the new Kyrgyz fabula, he flattered the Kyrgyz majority and worried other populations. However, he also provided a form of compensation by allowing certain non-Kyrgyz to benefit from economic and political power as long as these new leaders supported his policy. Akayev, the northerner, even encouraged the emergence of an Uzbek political representation in Osh to weaken the southern rival faction. In a political system where regional (North/ South) factions vie for power, the emergence of an Uzbek political minority offered President Akayev a political opportunity. Economic and political leaders openly showed that they now represented Uzbek interests. Member of parliament Kadirjan Batirov, who benefitted from the privatization period by acquiring formerly public factories, is the best symbol of this. He became both a rich biznessman and a public figure who presented himself as defending the interests of the Uzbek minority. Batirov garnered support from various international organizations and NGOs to create Uzbek media, schools, and even a university that would become a place of major political mobilization. Following the pogroms, this former deputy left the country and now lives in exile in Sweden, sentenced, following the events of June 2010, to a lengthy prison sentence by the Kyrgyz courts for inciting racial hatred. The economic and political weight of urban Uzbeks kindled resentment of the southern Kyrgyz, who felt marginalized and wanted to claim their economic position. The Kyrgyz were particularly affected by the liberal-

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ization of the economy and the collapse of agriculture, and increasingly migrated to the southern cities, challenging the Uzbek’s dominant economic position. However, the development of a new ethnonational state is not only the result of the Soviet legacy and the choices made by the first president. Indeed, Askar Akayev was heavily supported by Western countries and international organizations that came to reform his country. For two decades, Kyrgyzstan was even considered a model country or a laboratory in which to apply neoliberal political and economic governance policies recommended by most donors. The structural adjustments to the economy and the state’s retreat from all sectors amounted to shock therapy and also left its mark on the political sector and even ideology. It is in this context that UNESCO financed and officially supported the commemorations of Manas, the new father of the Kyrgyz nation. The UN passed an official resolution in this regard in 1995. Its charismatic president, Federico Mayor, attended the festivities with great pomp. The Soros Foundation and other lesser-known NGOs overwhelmingly supported the implementation of a policy for the protection of minorities and financed the Uzbek university in the South and the emergence of ethnic media and cultural centers in order to promote Uzbek language and identity. The emergence of this new ethnonational democracy seemed perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the international community as long as the Kyrgyz state implemented a corrective principle guaranteeing minority rights, with minorities being viewed only in terms of established groups and never in terms of individual citizenship. No one has, for instance, taken an interest in the issue of Russian-speaking citizens since they are not considered native or legitimate citizens. Hundreds of thousands of citizens (Russians, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians) were worried by the nationalist turn and left the country in great numbers (more than five hundred thousand). In two decades, there has been a great change in the composition of the population; although the Kyrgyz were barely a majority in their republic in the late 1980s, the last census in 2010 is enlightening: this group now represents more than 74 percent of the population. In contrast, hundreds of projects have been funded by international donors in the South to defend the rights of the Uzbek minority. They have funded Uzbek NGOs, schools, universities, cultural centers, and radio and television stations, all of which became prime targets for attackers during the ethnic riots of June 2010. The OSCE and the UNDP require Uzbek political representation within parliament to ensure specific cultural rights, particularly in matters of language. This policy only further politicizes ethnicity and increases divisions between groups at the expense of the creation of common public space for all citizens.

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The promotion of democracy inspired by international aid has thus strengthened a system that involves differentiation between groups. This conception rigidifies the principles of citizenship which can then lead to major conflicts. Kyrgyz citizens inevitably began to feel they have greater legitimacy than others to control their society. Russian-speaking populations left the country in droves, and Uzbeks felt increasingly threatened. Nationalist rhetoric, such as that fueled by the mayor of the city of Osh,4 began to thrive, and Russian and Uzbek citizens are now referred to as if they were foreigners in their own country. In the generally tense situation of 2010, some southern Kyrgyz openly challenged the economic supremacy of the urban population of the city of Osh, which happens to be mainly Uzbek. With each policy change, Uzbeks in the city were easily stigmatized as responsible for the social and economic crisis shaking the country. In addition, the political system no longer had the ability to rebalance power relationships through appointments within the bureaucracy, because the state has been largely dismantled by different policies inspired by international experts. Successive governments have nevertheless continued to weigh on the distribution of economic power by using radically different methods: cyclical expropriations and physical eliminations. At the same time, unbridled privatization, largely promoted by the World Bank and the IMF, has brought the Kyrgyz economy to its knees. The state is in debt; industry and agriculture have collapsed. This has produced a massive rural exodus toward the three major cities (Osh, Bishkek, and Jalalabad). The often very skilled urban population (teachers, engineers—mostly Russian, Ukrainian, Tatars, or citizens without nationality) fled abroad, replaced by Kyrgyz fleeing rural poverty. During Soviet times, the government tightly controlled population distribution. Since independence, people are free to choose their place of residence, resulting in a high population concentration in urban areas, where impoverished suburbs have begun to appear. Specifically in Osh, Uzbek and Kyrgyz became increasingly mixed, and complex relationships were forged in the new liberal economy. There are, of course, the new Kyrgyz rich, but in the social imaginary, the Uzbeks continue to be associated with wealth. The country now lives by various types of trafficking that is organized in a territory whose borders are widely open. These choices have led to growing inequality between a class of new rich thriving on cross-border trade in various material goods, and a population living mostly in poverty. The structural adjustment policy followed scrupulously by Askar Akayev fostered an unprecedented concentration of economic power in family groups. This was materialized first in his own situation. Together with his son, his daughter, and his son-in-law, Askar Akayev (from 1991

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to 2005) gradually took over very lucrative privatized national companies (telecoms, gasoline distribution, etc.). Various favors were distributed throughout the country according to political allegiance. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, former prime minister under Akayev, became his main opponent and denounced this nepotistic drift. He came to power in the 2005 parliamentary elections during what is referred to as the Tulip Revolution. During his time in office (2005–10), the new president soon exacerbated his predecessor’s tendencies. Together with his brothers and his son, he built a family economic empire. His brother, Janish, remains in the south of the country. The population quickly nicknamed him “the Khan” for his crucial role in regional business. His son, a young businessman, returned in 2005 from the Baltic countries and oversaw the development of family business activities in Bishkek. He is particularly associated with a transnational financial network that includes a Lithuanian banker (Valeri Belokon).5 Together, they became involved in the Kyrgyz banking sector through the creation of a new bank (Manas Bank) and other lucrative economic activities. They thus constitute a form of power that has little to do with the state and politics, but is instead based on powerful politicoeconomic transnational criminal organizations. In 2005, Bakiyev immediately questioned the advantages some Uzbeks in Osh had gained in the course of privatization. These biznessmeni, who had sometimes become the political representatives of the Uzbek minority, were economically marginalized, as parliamentarian Kadirjan Batyrov was. With the support of his brothers, Bakiyev reshuffled the economic cards and relied on other Uzbeks who were responsible for capturing the main economic resources by expropriating the authority of former Akayev protégés. Economic power in Osh gradually went into the hands of other Uzbeks associated with President Bakiyev and new local Kyrgyz politicians. In view of Bakiyev’s increasingly nepotistic politics, the Kyrgyz opposition decided to launch a power grab and took over in April 2010. The new interim government led by Roza Otunbayeva challenged the economic favors Bakiyev had handed out in the Osh region. Formerly sidelined individuals such as Batyrov were eager to take revenge, while others tried to preserve their position. This situation immediately caused serious tension. Two weeks before the violence broke out, the murder of an Uzbek businessman, Aibek Mirsidikov, marked the beginning of a spate of score-settling between different criminal groups seeking to control the economy in the country’s south. The victim, notoriously associated with organized crime, was closely linked to the Bakiyev family. He was even seen by some as overseeing the lucrative transit business of Afghan heroin. The departure of President Bakiyev therefore sidelined a number of

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economic and political figures, including both Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. Criminal groups linked to the Bakiyev family did not accept their marginalization and engaged in a suicidal and murderous process that triggered the violence that turned into the anti-Uzbek pogrom. This time, society could no longer rely on institutions to restore order. Indeed, at the behest of international organizations, the state had set about dismantling its main institutions, and criminal groups had long since stepped into the breach to provide social regulation. Some even had security agencies that served as private militia if needed. They would fight over economic territories as political changeovers occurred and their disputes eventually turned into a major conflict between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. The Bakiyev family’s local and transnational networks had much to lose with the advent of the new government. Their networks had succeeded in concentrating forms of power that could easily compete with a Kyrgyz state in tatters. They used the intense circulation of financial, economic, and other capital to benefit from the flaws of globalization. In a broader historical perspective, successive Kyrgyz politicians have a considerable share of responsibility in current events. It would also be worth examining the coproduction, and therefore the joint responsibility, of many international organizations and NGOs present in this country for almost twenty years now. Chosen political orientations have only exacerbated differences to the detriment of a common civil contract. Since then, the governments of Roza Otumbaeva and then Almas Atambayev have not been able to ensure justice following the pogroms in June 2010 and have maintained a highly ambiguous position toward the range of nationalist rhetoric against the Uzbeks. The current President, Almas Atambayev, is facing a political situation where the “Uzbek issue” is far from settled. The fourth Kyrgyz president in twenty years, Atambayev no longer has the task of building up the Kyrgyz fabula, but rather of preparing for a possible new ethnic apocalypse. If a new conflict erupts, he will be able to rely on the neoliberal governmentality to manage a potential emergency situation and deploy emergency humanitarian aid, but history is never written in advance.

Notes 1. I am speaking here of Kyrgyz citizens living in the city of Osh and who claim an Uzbek identity, and not of Uzbek coming from Uzbekistan. See chapter 2. 2. See International Crisis Group (2012), “Kyrgyzstan: Widening Ethnic Divisions in the South,” Asia Report 222, 29 March.

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From Kyrgyz Fabula to Ethnic Apocalypse? | 163

3. Traditionally, a Jigit was a young warrior on horseback. Today this term is associated with gangs of young men. 4. See Melis Myrzakmatov’s (2011) book, In the Search of the Truth. The Osh Tragedy: Documents, Facts, Appeals and Declarations (Bishkek). 5. This person is the owner of one of the largest Baltic banks (Baltik International Bank) and owns the British football club Blackpool. He is also the business associate of Vladimir Berezovski in a number of companies (communications, mining, and banking). See http://www.belokonholding.com/

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References Barth, Fredrik. 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Difference. London/Bergen/Oslo: Sforlaget University. Bichsel, Christine. 2008. Conflict Transformation in Central Asia: Irrigation Disputes in the Ferghana Valley. London: Routledge. Comaroff, John, and Jean Comaroff. 2010. Zombies et Frontières à l’Ère Néo-Libérale. Le Cas de ’Afrique du Sud Post-Apartheid. Paris: Les Prairies Ordinaires. Ferrando, Olivier. 2010. “Les Violences Ethniques de Juin 2010 au Kirghizstan: L’Identité Manipulée.” Revue d’Études Comparatives Est-Ouest 41 (3): 109–36. ———. 2008. “Manipulating the Census: Ethnic Minorities in the Nationalizing States of Central Asia.” Nationalities Papers 36 (3): 489–520. Geschiere, Peter. 2009. The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship and Exclusion in Africa and Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gossiaux, Jean-François. 2002. Pouvoirs Ethniques dans les Balkans. Paris: Puf. International Crisis Group. 2010. “The Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan.” Asia Report 193 (August). International Crisis Group. 2012. “Kyrgyzstan: Widening Ethnic Divisions in the South.” Asia Report 222 (29 March). http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/central-asia/kyr gyzstan/222-kyrgyzstan-widening-ethnic-divisions-in-the-south.aspx. Kyrgyz Inquiry Commission. 2010. “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Events in Southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010.” http://Reliefweb.Int/Sites/ Reliefweb.Int/Files/Resources/Full_Report_490.Pdf. Tishkov, Valery. 1995. “Don’t Kill Me, I’m A Kyrgyz.” Journal of Peace Research 32 (2).

Where Are All Our Sheep? : Kyrgyzstan, a Global Political Arena, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

– Appendix 1 –

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC TIMELINE

_ 1936

Creation of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic

1990

Ethnic conflict in the South among Kyrgyz and Uzbeks Askar Akayev elected as president of Kyrgyz SSR

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December 1991 Declaration of the independence of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan May 1993

New constitution and new name: Kyrgyz Republic

1995

President Akayev reelected

2000

President Akayev reelected

March 2002

Aksy events (five deaths): protests to support some opposition leaders contesting the legacy of a secret border treaty with China. Prime Minister K. Bakiev resigned

2002

Opening of the Manas US/NATO military air base in Bishkek

2003

Opening of the Russian military air base in Kant

February 2005

Parliamentary elections

March 2005

Tulip Revolution President Askar Akayev overthrown, exiled to Russia

July 2005

Kurmanbek Bakiyev elected president

– 164 –

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Appendix 1 | 165

2006

Clashes among the presidential coalition Government resigned

2007

Referendum for a new constitution Parlementary elections won by Bakiyev political party

2009

Bakiyev reelected

April 2010

President Bakiyev overthrown, exiled to Belarus Roza Otumbaeva, interim president

June 2010

Uzbek pogroms in the city of Osh (420 deaths)

September

Parliamentary elections

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December 2011 Presidential elections; Almas Atambaev elected new president

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– Appendix 2 –

CENSUS OF KYRGYZSTAN POPULATION

_

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Total population (100%)

Kyrgyz

Uzbeks

Russians

1979

3,522,832

1,687,382 (47.9%)

426,194 (12.1%)

911,703 (25.9%)

1989

4,257,775

2,229,663 (52.4%)

550,096 (12.9 %).

916,558 (21.5 %)

1999

4,822,938

3,128,147 (64.9%);

664,950 (13.8%)

603,201 (12.5%)

2010

5,418,300

3,860,500 (71.3%)

780,600 (14.4%)

408,000 (7.5%)

2013

5,663,100

4,099,400 (72.4%)

816,200 (14.4%)

375,400 (6.6%)

Source: National Committee for Statistics of the Kyrgyz Republic

– 166 –

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INDEX

A Abramzon, Saul, 95 Atambayev, Almazbek, 143, 149, 162 Afghanistan, 10, 21, 59, 62, 86n5, 91, 147, 153n1 Africa, 3, 42N5, 67, 150–51, 155 Aitikeev, Akbarali, 131 Aitmatov, Chingiz, 31–32, 42n10 Ak-Jol, 132, 134 Akayev, Askar, end of presidency. See also Tulip Revolution, 126–28, 131 ethnic integration/tensions, 39, 76, 158 exile, 144 Kyrgyz independence, 28–29 Manas, 31, 38, 49 critique of, 46, 78, 106, 108–9, 110, 115, 121, 127–28 political order, 70 partnerships, 96, 137, 160–161 relationship with Russia, 2 relationship with international actors, 29, 32, 37, 47–48, 69, 114, 126, 140, 159 Talas Valley, 33, 35 Akhtala District, 2, 14 Akhtala Valley, 122–23 American, 74, 108, 114, 119, 148, 151 products, 10, 35, 92, 94 aid and development, 21, 45, 47, 52, 54, 63, 110–12, 134, 142 democracy promotion, 53, 55, 64, 65, 67, 113, 115, 118, 120–21, 126

anti-Uzbek sentiments, 149, 154, 162 Asian Development Bank, 46 At-Bashi district, 95, 97, 98, 103, 120, 135–36 B Baatir, Taylak, 2–3, 10 Baisalov, Edil, 45–46, 69, 109–115, 128, 133–34, 143–44 Bakiyev, Kurmanbek, 46, 161–162 changes since the election of, 98–99, 134, 137, 140–41 election of, 109, 127–28, 131–32, 133 exile of, 143–44, 154 support for, 85, 149, 155 Birge, 128 Bishkek, administration, 5, 77 cultural representation, 31, 32, 33, 89 economy, 17–18, 61, 80–81, 88, 93, 96, 98, 101, 161 migration, 71, 73 politics, 108, 109, 111, 115–16, 128 C Chambers, Robert, 51 China, 86, 120, 150, 153 goods produced in, 10, 72, 88–89, 91–93, 101, 106 economic relationship with, 7, 11, 17, 25, 76, 90–91, 96, 97, 98–99, 101, 141, 147 political connection with, 42, 73, 144n5

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168 | Index

Coca-Cola Company, 35 Communist Party, 89–90, 96, 104, 135, 140 Community Based Organizations (CBOs), 50 corruption, 57n14, 64, 69, 114, 119

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D decentralization, 39–40, 48–50 democracy, 111–112, 126, 134, 146, 151 Akayev, Askar and, 29, 78, 114, 128 and decentralization, 39, elections, 59–69, 109, 133, 143–44 ethnic differences, 41, 159 promotion by international groups 35, 37, 46, 52–56, 113, 149, 160 E elections, 53, 59–69, 85, 106, 109, 115, 121–136, 142–144, 146, 148 electoral code, 60, 64 international involvement, 55–56, 63 legislative, 45 local, 17 monitoring, 56, 60, 108–29 observation, 55, 109, 115,117, 119, 121, 127, 133, 143, 151 observers, long-term (LTO), 115–16, 119–25 observers, short-term (STO), 115– 16, 119–21, 126, 129n17 parliamentary, 108, 114 political liberalization, 62 system, 55–56, 67 Zamir, election of, 60, 67–68 European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), 109, 112–13, 121, 127–128, 132–133 European Union, 42n10, 120, 151 G Georgia, 56, 62, 70n4, 109, 112, 114, 119, 121, 151 globalization, 40–41, 82, 98,106, 142, 146–47, 149, 152–54, 162

good governance, 29, 45–57, 114, 116– 18, 121, 146, 149–50,152 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 32 I international aid and development, 25, 46, 55, 105, 128, 134, 140, 147, 149, 160 donors, 39, 41–42, 47, 49–54, 56, 61, 66, 159 international organizations, 29, 35– 36, 39–40, 42, 46, 52, 54–55, 82, 86, 90, 105, 118, 148, 150, 155, 158–159, 162 See also non-governmental organizations (NGOs) International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), 45, 55, 59, 60–70 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 46, 160 Iskenderov, Talapai, 15, 68 Islam, 18–21, 26n, 17, 78, 83–84, 100, 104, 137, 155 J Jol, Ok, 149 K Kachkanbaev, Zamir, 11–16, 22, 59–60, 67–68, 70, 131 Kasiyev, Naken, 135–136 Kazakhstan, 6, 52, 55, 72, 77, 100, 146 Kel-Kel, 114, 127–128 Koalitsia, 45, 54–55, 61, 69, 109–115, 127–28, 132–34 kolkhoz, 2–18, 24–25, 60–61, 75, 79, 89, 91, 100, 105–106, 123, 131–33 Kyrgyz Kyrgyzness, 18, 39, 67, 104 Kyrgyz People’s Movement (PMK), 109, 127 language, 33, 36, 39 shepherds, 6, 17, 23, 35, 95 L Lenin, 10, 89, 90, 106n2 lineage, 3, 8, 16, 41, 68

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M Madoumarov, Adakhan, 144 Manas, 6, 28–43, 48–49, 67, 90, 158–59 Manas Village, 32 Manbetov family, 10–11, 77, 131 Manbetov, Kubanachbek, 4–10, 17–18, 101 Mayor, Federico, 32, 37, 159 Ming Kush, 123–124 Monolov, Sujunali, 2–3, 14–16, 24, 67, 132–133 Moscow fall of USSR, 29, 31 international relationships, 54, 96 migration, 71–72, 78, 79–85 relationship with Kyrgyzstan, 2, 32, 42n4, 94, 131, 144, 149 Muraliev, Amangeldi, 96 Muslim, 19–20, 26n17, 33, 78, 104, 106, 150, 155 N Naryn, development, 51, 104 economy, 9, 77, 98, 100, 106 kolkhoz, 7, 10 Kyrgyz population, 8, 95 politics, 2, 14, 93, 97, 102, 103, 115, 125, 135 privatization, 12 nomadism. See also Kyrgyz shepherds, 5, 6, 7, 73 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), 21–23, 25, 29, 40–42, 45–48, 51–56, 61–63, 69, 86, 90, 105, 109–20, 132–33, 142, 146–51, 158–59, 162 O Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), 115–20, 125, 128, 129n15, 143–45 Okeev, Tolomish, 32 Orange Revolution, 113, 122 Osh economy, 12, 81, 91, 93, 101 identity, 38, 79, 86n6, 162n1

politics, 135, riots, 143, 154–61 Otunbayeva, Roza, 46, 143, 161 P pastoral activities, 5 privatization, 5, 11, 13–14, 16, 21, 25, 47, 91–93, 96, 139–43, 158, 160–61 Putin, Vladimir, 127, 129, 134, 142 R religion, 18–19, 33, 155 Rose Revolution, 62 Russia, 2–3, 6, 25, 30, 42, 71–85, 91–92, 94, 95, 97, 99–103, 114, 119, 129nn9–10, 133–34, 137, 141–42, 148, 150, 156 Russian language, 17, 23, 38, 39, 88, 159–60 S Sakharov, Andrei, 32 Salymbekov, Askar, 2, 93–104, 107n4, 135–37, 143 Saudi Arabia, 20, 25 Sayak, 16, 68 Second World War, 8, 10, 74 Serbia, 63, 112–14, 120, 128 Sidikov, Jenishbek, 32 Silk Road, 36, 104 Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SPDK), 144 Song Kol Lake, 1–2, 4, 7–8, 10, 22 Soros Foundation, 47, 54, 114, 159 Soros, George. See Soros Foundation Soviet system, 7–8, 24, 96, 99 T Tajik, 5, 84 Tajikistan, 31, 34, 52, 146, 150 Talas Valley, 32–33 textile production, 7–8, 12 The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 40, 46, 108–9, 115–23, 127, 129nn15– 16, 132–33, 144, 148, 151, 159 Tian Shan, 5, 30–31, 53

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170 | Index

Togolok Moldo changes in, 4–5, 12–13, 16 economy, 11, 15, 72, 90, 100, 102, 131 elections, 17, 59–60, 67, 69 NGOs, 21, 51 religion, 19–20 Togonbayev, Adil, 140 Tokmok, 8 tourism, 2, 4, 21–23, 34, 88, 98 Tulip Revolution. See also Akayev, Askar, 45–47, 114, 128, 130–31, 134, 142–43, 161 Turkey, 17, 25, 76, 91, 111 Turkmenistan, 52, 62

United States, 29, 54, 62, 109, 140, 150, 152 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 21–22, 25, 51–57, 81, 86n11 Usubaliyev, Turdakun, 1, 11, 135 Uulu, Bakir, 38 Uyghur, 99 Uzbek, 5, 38–43, 49, 82, 92, 119, 149, 154–55 Uzbek issue, 157, 162 Uzbek University, 43n26, 159 Uzbekistan, 31, 38, 52, 63, 92–93, 100, 146

U United Nations (UN), 35–36, 40, 46–47, 54–55, 57, 59, 63, 90, 159 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 36, 40, 47–56, 123, 129n22, 159 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 28–42, 159

V Valley of Fergana, 38 W World Bank, 21–22, 25, 46, 48, 51, 63, 90, 160

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Y Yeltsin, Boris, 2, 103

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