Abstract
On September 19, 2010, a military truck was ambushed in Kamarob Gorge, in the Rasht Valley region of Tajikistan, killing all personnel on board and attracting the attention of political analysts and government regimes across Central Asia. This occurred in a region that had been considered a backward, dangerous, and reactionary area since as early as the 1920s. Bearing this wider historical context in mind, the civil war and the most recent event in Tajikistan can be seen as part of a series of critical events that served to project a narrative of dangerousness or more accurately, criticality (Gefährlichkeitszuschreibung) onto this geographical area.
How was the civil war and the conflict of 2010 experienced in a village in Kamarob? How did its inhabitants reject, engage, flee, or negotiate with the parties involved in the conflict and the concepts imposed on their lives? These are questions that this chapter will outline, focusing on my own ethnographic experiences since 2002, and conversations with the inhabitants of one village that, to protect its anonymity, I have called Shahrigul here.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The region was known as Eastern Bukhara until the 1920s, then referred to as the Qarotegin Valley, and since the 1990s has been called the Rasht Valley. I will use the terms interchangeably, depending on the historical period under discussion.
- 2.
Many of these migrants chose to go to the Ferghana Valley in Russian Turkestan because, due to the Russian presence, it had (since the 1870s) a comparatively well-developed economy. Apart from the Ferghana connection, Olimova and Bosc (2003, 11) traced labour migration to Baldjuvan, Kulab, and Gissar region. In general, people from mountain villages tended to migrate to the lower valleys. On this, see for example Beisembiev (2000) and Bushkov (2000).
- 3.
- 4.
Niyazi’s (1994, 1999, 2000) approach can be considered representative for interpreting the developments in Qarotegin, especially within the Russian framework. The Qarotegin Valley came to be portrayed as an area where old traditions had been preserved (according to Socialist ideology this meant that the area remained backward and did not experience any sort of modernization). See also Kislyakov and Pisarchik (1972), Bushkov (1993), and Bushkov and Mikul’skii (1996).
- 5.
The division of regions was reinforced by the political distribution of posts in Dushanbe (Rubin 1998; Roy 1999, 2000; Bergne 2007). While people from the north of Tajikistan received the leading positions, the “Gharmi” people (from the Rasht Valley) remained in lower positions. Whereas geography was not the only organizing pattern, since many groups had been relocated across the country from the late 1940s onwards, regionalism (mahalgaroi) was the common way to describe any tense relationship or economic and political competition among communities and people with origins in different regions (Jean and Mullojanov 2008; Kɪlavuz 2009).
- 6.
All interviews in this chapter have been translated from Tajik by myself.
- 7.
For a more elaborate history of the social conditions in this period, consult Roche (2014).
- 8.
It is the same calendar as the Chinese, with exception of the dragon, which is replaced by a fish.
- 9.
- 10.
Roberts (1998) has claimed that young people engaged in war activities based on patronage relations and expected their commanders to provide for them even after the war was over. This expectation represents a great risk to the power of the patron, who needs access to resources if he is to secure his position (see Kılavuz 2009; Ismailbekova 2011).
- 11.
Until late 2002, international workers were not allowed to take public transport even in their leisure time, and moved around the country in private Land Rovers, or during field missions in cars provided by the organization that were easily recognized among the Niva and other Russian cars.
- 12.
- 13.
See United Nations Security Council (1997, 3). In the context of the 1997 peace agreement, the program of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) was implemented in Tajikistan. For this purpose, humanitarian organizations and UN agencies stationed in the country produced a list of former combatants; this rehabilitation list protected them from legal persecution. However, only important commanders and fighters were added, while many militarily insignificant fighters, young men, and opportunists, who did not engage in patron–client relations with a particular opposition group, were not; thus, they were ineligible for post-war (re)integration. These young men were at constant risk of being arrested, as I witnessed myself: in 2007, one of these men, a boy at the time of the civil war in Tajikistan, was arrested almost before my eyes. There are no statistics regarding the number of those who have never been rehabilitated.
- 14.
Even if regulations prohibit the recruitment of an only son, in practice, and for the sake of filling quotas, all boys are subject to recruitment as soon as they reach the right age. Therefore, every year tens of thousands of young boys leave home (often before finishing school) for Russia to avoid conscription.
- 15.
According to a relative of a commander of the Tajik army, more than 300 soldiers lost their lives in this conflict. Yet numbers have to be treated carefully in this country, where they are political tools rather than representative of the outcomes of real-life situations.
- 16.
See Chap. 4 for a description of the different modes of death that may lead a person to be declared shahid.
- 17.
I differentiate between the rūmol, a scarf that all women wear and is bound around the neck or a large scarf that is loosely placed over one’s head outside the compound, and the hijob, a scarf that is unicoloured, bound in front, and affiliated with living a pious life. Although both scarves are religiously motivated, the hijob is used to display religiosity, see Stephan (2010).
- 18.
These religious expressions Allahu Akbar (Allah is great), alhamdulillo (Praise be to God) are normal among many believers but unusual in Tajikistan. A person who uses them is clearly seeking to display him- or herself as a strong believer.
- 19.
Buzkashi is a popular men’s sport in Central Asia in which a dead goat or calf needs to be carried into a goal by a team of horsemen.
- 20.
Observation of the game between Istiqlol and Khair on July 11, 2011.
- 21.
While this was not mentioned in any of the media reports, it may hint at a misunderstanding as well as a conscious policy of disinformation that foregrounded the escape of the prisoners as the reason why the war began, detracting from a more socially embedded conflict over resources.
- 22.
A summary of the military autumn can be found in Chap. 1.
- 23.
Mocking military power was one way of transforming the tension and absurdity of the conflict and re-establishing oneself as an honourable citizen.
- 24.
Homiyon is a Turkish television detective series, which has been running for a long time and was extremely popular among Tajiks in 2010. Everybody watched the newest episodes and people would often compare their political conditions to those of the actors in the series.
Bibliography by Author
Beisembiev, Timur K. “Migration in the Qöqand Khanate in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” In Migration in Central Asia: Its History and Current Problems, edited by H. Komatsu, C. Obiya, and J. S. Schoeberlein, 35−40. Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies/National Museum of Ethnology, 2000.
Bergne, Paul. The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.
Bjerg, Helle, and Claudia Lenz. “‘If Only Grandfather Was Here to Tell Us.’ Gender as a Category in the Culture of Memory of the Occupation in Denmark and Norway.” In The Gender of Memory. Cultures of Remembrance in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Europe, edited by S. Palatschek and S. Schraut, 221–236. Frankfurt: Campus, 2008.
Braun, Christina v., and Ulrike Auga. “Beyond Boundaries: Introduction.” In Gender in Conflicts: Palestine, Israel, Germany, edited by Ch.v. Braun and U. Auga, 1–14. Münster: Lit, 2006.
Bruner, Edward M. “The Opening Up of Anthropology.” In Text, Play and Story: The Construction and Reconstruction of Self and Society, edited by E. M. Bruner, 1–16. Washington, DC: American Ethnological Society, 1984.
——— “Experience and its Expression.” In The Anthropology of Experience, edited by V. Turner and E. Bruner, 3−33. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Bushkov, V. I. “Population Migration in Tajikistan: Past and Present.” In Migration in Central Asia: Its History and Current Problems, edited by K. Hisao, O. Chika and J.S. Schoeberlein 147−156. Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies, National Museum of Ethnoglogy, 2000.
———. Tadschikistan vor dem Bürgerkrieg: Eine traditionelle Gesellschaft in der Krise. Berichte des Bundesinstituts für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien 26. Cologne: Bundesinstitut für Ostwissenschaftliche und Internationale Studien, 1993.
Bushkov, V. I. and D. V. Mikul’skii. Anatomiya grazhdanskoy voyni v Tadzhikistane (ethno-sotsial’nie protsessi i politicheskaya bor’ba 1992−1995) [Anatomy of the civil war in Tajikistan (ethno-social processes and political struggle 1992–1995)]. Moscow: Institut etnologii i antropologii RAN/Institute prakticheskogo vostokvedeniya, 1996.
Das, Veena. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Hayit, Baymirza.“Basmatschi.” Nationaler Kampf Turkestans in den Jahren 1917 bis 1934. Cologne: Dreisam, 1992.
Ismailbekova, Aksana. “The Native Son in Rural Kyrgyzstan: Democracy, Kinship, and Patronage.” PhD diss., Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 2011.
Jackson, Michael. Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies, and Effects. Methodology and History in Anthropology 11. New York: Berghahn, 2005.
Jean, Isabella, and Parvis Mullojanov. Conflict and Peacebuilding in Tajikistan. Cambridge, MA: Collaborative Learning Projects, 2008.
Kassem, Fatma. Palestinian Women. Narrative Histories and Gendered Memory. London: Zed Books, 2010.
Kassymbekova, Botakoz. “Helpless Imperialists: European State Workers in Soviet Central Asia in the 1920s and 1930s.” Central Asian Survey 30, no. 1 (2011): 21–38.
Kılavuz, İdil T. “The Role of Networks in Tajikistan’s Civil War: Network Activation and Violence Specialists.” Nationalities Papers 37, no. 5 (2009): 693−717.
Kislyakov, N. A., and A. K. Pisarchik. Tadzhiki Karategina i Darvaza [The Tajiks of Karategin and Darvaz]. Vols. 1−2. Dushanbe: Donish, 1972, 1976.
Leydesdorff, Selma, Luisa Passerini, and Paul Thompson, eds. Gender and Memory. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2005.
Martine, Elaine. “Is War Gendered? Issues In Representing Women And The Second World War.” In Production, Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence. The Practice of War, edited by A. Rao, M. Bolling, and M. Böck, 161−174. New York: Berghahn, 2007.
Martin, Virginia. Law and Custom in the Steppe: The Kazakhs of the Middle Horde and Russian Colonialism in the Nineteenth Century. London: Routledge Curzon, 2001.
Marwat, Fazal-ur-Rahim Khan. The Basmachi Movement in Soviet Central Asia. Peshawar: Emjay Books International, 1985.
Niyazi, Aziz. “Tajikistan.” In Central Asia and the Caucasus after the Soviet Union, edited by M. Mesbahi, 164−190. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994.
———. “Islam and Tajikistan’s Human and Ecological Crisis.” In Civil Society in Central Asia, edited by M. H. Ruffi and D. C. Waugh, 180−197. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.
———. “Migration, Demography, and Socio-ecological Processes in Tajikistan.” In Migration in Central Asia: Its History and Current Problems, edited by H. Komatsu, J. S. Schoeberlein, and O. Chika, 169−178. Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies/National Museum of Ethnology, 2000.
Olimova, Saodat, and Igor Bosc. “Labour Migration from Tajikistan.” Mission of the International Organization for Migration, Dushanbe, 2003. Accessed May 15, 2005. www.iom.tj/publications/labour_migration_2003.pdf.
Roberts, Sean R. “Negotiating Locality, Islam, and National Culture in a Changing Borderlands: The Revival of the Mäshräp Ritual among Young Uighur Men in the Ili Valley.” Central Asian Survey 17, no. 4 (1998): 673−699.
Roche, Sophie. “Friendship Relations in Tajikistan: An Ethnographic Account.” Ab Imperio 3 (2010): 273−298.
———. Domesticating Youth: Youth Bulges and Their Socio-political Implications in Tajikistan. New York: Berghahn, 2014.
Roy, Olivier. “Kolkhoz and Civil Society in the Independent States of Central Asia.” In Civil Society in Central Asia, edited by M. H. Ruffi and D. C. Waugh, 109−121. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.
———. The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations. Library of International Relations 15. London: I. B.Tauris, 2000.
Rubin, Barnett. “Russian Hegemony and State Breakdown in the Periphery. Causes and Consequences of the Civil War in Tajikistan.” In Post-Soviet Political Order. Conflict and State Building, edited by B. Rubin and J. Snyder, 119−150. London: Routledge, 1998.
Snesarev, G. P. Traditsiya muzhskikh soyuzov v eyo pozdneyshem variante u narodov sredney asii [The tradition of male gatherings and their later development among the people of Central Asia]. Materialy Chorezmskoy Ekspedicii. Moscow: Institut Etnologii i antropologii RAN, 1963.
Stephan, Manja. Das Bedürfnis nach Ausgewogenheit: Moralerziehung, Islam und Muslimsein in Tadschikistan zwischen Säkularisierung und religiöser Rückbesinnung. Kultur, Recht und Politik in muslimischen Gesellschaften 16. Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 2010.
Tutubalina, O. “Poslednyaya okhota na zverya” [Last hunting of the ‘beast’]. Asia Plus 50, no. 360 (2006): 6−7.
Bibliography Without Author
Letter dated 10 March 1997 from the permament representative of the Russian Federation to the United nations Addressed to the Secretary-General; Annex II, PROTOCOL ON MILITARY ISSUES, S/1997/209,” United Nation Security Council, https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/sites/default/files/accords/Tajik_Final_Accord_with_annexes.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Roche, S. (2019). Critical Events. In: The Faceless Terrorist. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03843-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03843-4_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03842-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03843-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)