MINELRES: Fwd: IWPR: "Velvet discrimination" in Kyrgyzstan

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IWPR REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 264, February 11, 2004

www.iwpr.net <http://www.iwpr.net/> .

"VELVET DISCRIMINATION" IN KYRGYZSTAN 

Some Russians say they no longer feel they belong, as parliament debates
a law to give Kyrgyz language a greater role. 

By Natalia Domagalskaya in Bishkek 

As Kyrgyzstan's parliament discusses a controversial language law,
members of the substantial Russian minority say they increasingly feel
excluded from positions of power. 


Community representatives told IWPR that while Russians do not face
overt hostility or discrimination, they sense that there is no future
for them in the Central Asian republic.


The proposed law would boost the use of Kyrgyz in public life, making it
a requirement that top government officials have a good knowledge of the
language and that it is the main language used in official
communications. Russian is currently used for many official purposes.
There are also provisions to set media outlets a "quota" for the
percentage of airtime or column space in Kyrgyz rather than Russian, and
encourage greater use of the language in the education system. 

The law is clearly designed to address a situation where, after a period
in the early Nineties when Kyrgyz was actively promoted as a vehicle for
national identity, Russian has quietly re-established itself as the main
language of administration. But the substantial Russian minority, left
behind after the fall of the Soviet Union, watches government policy
closely for any sign that its status and rights are being diminished. 

Many already feel beleaguered, not by racism but by the petty
obstructions they say are laid in their way because they are not
ethnically Kyrgyz. 

"Russians encounter inequalities and humiliations on a daily basis in
various areas of life," Valery Uleyev, head of the Slavic Diaspora
association in the southern region of Jalalabad, told IWPR. "It's known
as velvet discrimination." Some look back fondly to the Soviet period
when Russians formed the USSR's majority population, and ethnic tensions
were kept firmly suppressed. 

Viktor Gusakov, a farmer of Russian origin, recalls a bureaucratic
system which used to apportion each ethnic group a set number of posts.
Now, he said, the Russians, Uzbeks and Germans who are the major ethnic
minorities in Kyrgyzstan do not even get those positions of nominal
importance. 

"I don't care about that, as I'm not dying to become a [parliamentary]
deputy, but I feel bad for my children," he told IWPR. "Does it mean
they will forever be second-class here?"


Gusakov is just one of many who plan to emigrate with his family, "We
are preparing the documentation to leave for Russia. There's no one
waiting for us there, and my sons and daughter are very unlikely to
become presidents there, but at least that won't be caused by their
having the wrong nationality [statement of ethnic origin rather than
citizenship] stamped in their passport." 

Many would find it hard to leave a country they regard as their home. 

"I am a fourth-generation resident of Kyrgyzstan, I've got grown-up
children and I hope to live to see my great-grandchildren. I have no
other homeland, and no one is really driving me out of here or being
rude to me," said Nadezhda, an elderly woman living in Vinogradnoe, a
village that still bears the name given it by her great-grandfather when
he arrived from Tsarist Russia in the late 19th century. For Nadezhda,
the main reason for leaving is that "nowadays, no one here values the
contribution my forebears made to the common good of the republic". 

Most Russians in Kyrgyzstan live in the capital Bishkek and the fertile
Chui valley which surrounds it. They started leaving the country in
large numbers after it became independent in 1991, fleeing the dire
economic situation as well as the sudden discovery that they were a
diaspora. Of the 916,000 who lived in Kyrgyzstan when the 1989 census
was conducted, 40 per cent have gone, mainly to Russia, leaving a
community that today numbers around 550,000. In percentage terms, the
fall is even more dramatic - from 22 per cent of the population in 1989
to just 11 per cent today. 

The authorities have tried to stem the flow by giving the Russian
language official status, and setting up the Assembly of People of
Kyrgyzstan, a forum for the country's various ethnic groups which held
its fourth congress at the end of January. Many non-Russian groups as
diverse as the Germans, Ukrainians, Tatars and Koreans rely on Russian
as their first or most widely-used language. 

Even the most vehement critics of President Askar Akaev give him credit
for the careful balancing act he has performed since independence to
keep ethnic tensions in check, while promoting Kyrgyz national identity. 

As well as maintaining stability, the policy - embodied in the slogan
"Kyrgyzstan is our common home" - has helped him maintain cordial
relations with Russia, which still plays an important role as economic
and security partner. 

A minority of Kyrgyz would not be sorry if the Russians leave. One older
woman, who teaches Kyrgyz language in the Chui region, said, "Anyone who
is unhappy with the state of affairs has, after all, his own historical
motherland. Let them go there. The Kyrgyz don't have anywhere else to
go, and it is quite right that they should be masters in their own
country." This woman's recollection of the Soviet Union is rather
different from Gusakov's, "I still well remember the offensive label of
'natsmen' [pejorative term abbreviated from the Russian for "national
minority"], which was used for all non-Russians, even in areas where the
Kyrgyz have always been the overwhelming majority." 


Such opinions are rarely expressed in public debate. They are at odds
with the government's policy of encouraging Russians not to emigrate,
and do not appear to reflect the generally tolerant views of society. 

Few observers see real signs that the Kyrgyz are striving for dominance
over other ethnic groups. And many of the problems Russians face are as
much to do with economic and social factors as with their ethnicity. 

While most Russians live in the north, the smaller community in southern
Kyrgyzstan - the poorest part of the country - feel especially
marginalised. 

"The Russian-language education system is declining in quality and the
Russian information sphere [media] is shrinking," said Uleev. "All
official events are conducted in the state language [Kyrgyz] alone.
Unemployment rates among Russians are catastrophic, as the [Jalalabad]
region's industrial sector is in a state akin to clinical death. 

"It's hard to describe the attitude towards Russians in the south as
discrimination - we are simply ignored. We don't exist anywhere, not in
the [local] authorities, not in business, not in the third
[non-government] sector." 

Uzbeks form the other large ethnic minority in Kyrgyzstan. Unlike the
Russians, they live mostly in the southern half of the country, and
theirs is not historically an immigrant community, simply the product of
a border demarcation first carried out in the Twenties. 

They also differ in that they have slightly increased their share of the
population in the years since independence, to about 14 per cent of a
total population of some five million. But according to Abdumalik
Sharipov, an expert on ethnic and religious relations with the Jalalabad
human rights organisation Spravedlivost (Justice), the two groups share
a common aspiration to enjoy a little more access to positions of power. 

"But so far these dreams remain only dreams," he said. 

Natalia Domagalskaya is an independent journalist in Bishkek. 


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