Posted on 04/24/2013 5:00:29 PM PDT by Enza Ferreri
Mirroring what is happening in the world, there is an Islamic revival in the Caucasus and Central Asia, with all that it means for local Christians.
The predominantly Muslim Central Asian Republics, after the collapse of the Soviet Union of which they were part, have seen an increase in the persecution of Christians. The fall of dictatorship, in a pattern similar to that of post-war Iraq and the “Arab Spring” in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, seems to have “liberated” the radical elements within Muslim communities.
The now independent countries of Central Asia are the following five, in order of population size: Uzbekistan (just under 30 million people), Kazakhstan (16-17 million), Tajikistan (7-8 million), Kyrgyzstan (5-6 million), which is particularly topical now because the family of the Boston bombings suspects lived there, and Turkmenistan (just over 5 million), for a total population of 64.7 million in 2012, the vast majority of whom are Muslim. Another Muslim-majority country formerly part of the Soviet Union is the Republic of Azerbaijan, the largest in the Caucasus, at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, with a population of over 9 million, 95 percent Muslim.
What is paradoxical is that, while during the Soviet era the ruling Communist Party, through the education system and official propaganda, imposed so-called "scientific atheism" (a name reminiscent of so many Western atheists who, à la Richard Dawkins, fallaciously declare the denial of God to derive from science), for Christians in Central Asia and the Caucasus the end of the Communist regime, which was supposed to bring freedom of religion, brought another form of religious oppression. Continues...
(Excerpt) Read more at enzaferreri.blogspot.co.uk ...
Asia? Hell, we just experienced Arab Spring in America.
I felt better when the Russians controlled it.
Not quite as bad, though.
‘Arab spring’ has started circa 1989 and culminated through 1993 in that part of the world. Millions of infidels suffered in one of the world largest but largely unknown ethnic cleansing of modern era. It has mostly stabilized under Russian pressure but most of these countries turned dirt poor after departure of the whole class of productive infidels. Decomposed infrastructure and civil society, lack of basic education and food makes soil to reproduce radicalism at some rate.
Afghanistan is a perfect example. Under Soviets it was a nation in class of Bulgaria. Tajikistan was a place in a class of Estonia or Poland. Today they forgot running water and actively heading to have a 100 dollar annual per capita.
It won’t take long for these people to start their jihad again.
I was deployed to Uzbekistan in 2004. Uzbeks were mostly secular, hated the Afghans both historically & for Wahhabi fanaticism, and liked vodka & Russian pop music. Uzbek gals dressed as they pleased and despised the burqa.
Seventy years of Soviet rule make it hard for Uzbeks to exchange one form of tyranny for another. Who really knows except having the Iranians and Afghans nearby is a powerful deterrent to Islamic rule in Uzbekistan.
To be fair, being a single oasis of some kind of advanced civilization in Central Asia by 19th century, Uzbekistan was a tyranny long before Soviet rule (and Tsarist Russian rule before).
What seems to have caused you to excerpt your own blog?
During a trip to Samarkand we drove past the tomb & statue of the original Tamerlaine. He was not to be messed with, even in death. Stalin ordered his remains exhumed for scientific study & three weeks later the Nazis invaded. In 1943 Stalin ordered Tamerlaine’s remains re-entombed with ceremony, and the following week the Soviets won their decisive tank victory at Kursk.
That’s what the Uzbeks told me, anyway. Tamerlaine is on their 500 soum note (80 cents US). Uhlan Beg is their other dawg; like most Muslims the Uzbeks admire conquerors more than any other including Alexander the Great who took an Uzbek wife when he paused before invading India. Just ask an Uzbek.
They were OK folks. We felt safe travelling there.
Yep, I know this story. There is a legend he had a warning on his tomb: “The one who’ll break the rest of Tamerlane will release a spirit of the greatest war ever. Millions will die etc.”. Probably a BS.
The other legend was about the gate to the city which was inscribed, “He who comes to destroy Samarkand shall himself be destroyed!”, and that Batu Khan took one look & said, “no thanks” & withdrew his Golden Horde.
FWIW Uzbeks told me all their heroes were either poets or conquerors (no soccer stars?). One proudly showed me an English volume of “authentic Uzbek folk tales” published by the U.S. embassy in Tashkent. They were all taken from “Thousand and One Nights” but with a Central Asian setting, though come to think of it, Scheherezade is not an Arab name but is common in Uzbekistan in the form of “Shahzoda”.
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