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Dissent of the Muslims: Soviet Central Asia in the 1980s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

M. Mobin Shorish
M. Mobin Shorish*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Extract

It is very difficult to translate fully the above verse from the great Persian-speaking poet Bidil without violating its spirit in the context of the Central Asian (and other Iranian areas) culture. The spirit of the verse is not so much fatalism about life itself but is one of cynicism derived from power-lessness over one's fate. This verse is often uttered by the Central Asian intellectuals in response to questions about their relationship with the Russians and sharing of power in the Soviet bureaucracy. It does not communicate resignation. It describes the reality of the USSR, an awareness that a Central Asian is powerless to change circumstances to those favoring his/her well being and spiritual instincts. It camouflages the underlying resentment toward the dominant group, the Russians, who have the monopoly of the means of violence and who have not hesitated to use these means against the Muslim population of Central Asia on numerous occasions during the past hundred years of their rule there.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , Fall 1981 , pp. 185 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities (USSR and East Europe) Inc. 

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References

Notes

1. Personal observations in mosques at the Jumaat Prayers and individuals’ final prayers (all in Arabic) beseeching Allah to rid them from the oppressors. Also, see “Story of Ayshe,” Impact International, Vol. 10, Nos. 13 & 14, July, 1980; Ijaz Gilani, “We Too are Muslims but We are Ruled by Kuffar,” Impact International, Vol. 10, No. 18, 26 September, 1980.Google Scholar

2. S. Enders Wimbush, “The Great Russians and The Soviet State: The Dilemas of Ethnic Dominance,” in Jeremy Azrael, Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York, Praeger, 1978); David Shipler, “A Russian Nationalism is on the Rise,” The New York Times, Nov. 12, 1978.Google Scholar

3. Alexandre Bennigsen, “Soviet Muslims and the World of Islam,” Problems of Communism, Vol. XXIX, March-April, 1980; Geoffrey Wheeler, Racial Problems in Soviet Muslim Asia (London: Oxford University Press, 1960).Google Scholar

4. Elizabeth Bacon, Central Asians Under Russian Rule (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966); Richard Pierce, Russian Central Asia: 1867–1917 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960); Alexandre Bennigsen and C.L.Google Scholar

Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union (London: Pall Mall Press, 1967); Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979); Helene Carrēre d’ Encausse, Decline of an Empire (New York: Newsweek Books, 1980); Edward Allworth, (ed.), The Nationality Question in Soviet Central Asia (New York: Praeger, 1973).Google Scholar

5. N. N. Shneidman, Literature and Ideology in Soviet Education (Lexington, Mass.,: D.C. Health, 1973).Google Scholar

6. M. Mobin Shorish, “Tajiks in the Social Systems of Afghanistan and the USSR,” paper delivered at Soviet-Asian Ethnic Frontier Conference, East Lansing, Michigan, February 25–26, 1977; “Conflict Among Non-Russian Ethnic Groups in Central Asia,” paper presented at the Mid-West Slavic Conference, Chicago: May 6–8, 1976.Google Scholar

7. Turkmenskaya iskra, June 15, 1980. English Translation by Radio Liberty Research, July 28, 1980.Google Scholar

8. M. Mobin Shorish, “Who Shall be Educated: Selection and Integration in Soviet Central Asia,” in Edward Allworth, op. cit.Google Scholar

9. Ibid.Google Scholar

10. Ibid.Google Scholar

11. M. Mobin Shorish, “The Pedagogical, Linguistic, and Logistical Problems of Teaching Russian to the Local Central Asians,” Slavic Review, September, 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. J. Fishman, Language and Nationalism (Rowley: Mass., Newbury House, 1972).Google Scholar

13. Brian Silver, “Bilingualism and Maintenance of the Mother Tongue in Soviet Central Asia,” Slavic Review, September, 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Alexandre Bennigsen, “Muslin Conservative Opposition to the Soviet Regime: The Sufi Brotherhoods in North Caucasus” in Jeremy Azrael op. cit.; “Several Nations or One People? Ethnic Consciousness Among Soviet Central Asian Muslims,” Survey, Vol. 24, No. 3, Summer 1979.Google Scholar

15. Mirzā tursunzāda, Ilhām (Dushanbe: Irfān, 1969).Google Scholar

16. Abdulahad Quahhārov, Darpartavi āzādi (Dushanbe: Irfān, 1966).Google Scholar

17. Lāiq “Sha'irhā’ Nav,” Sadā'i Sharq, No. 3, 1976, p. 4.Google Scholar

18. As quoted in Gulnazar Kildiev, “Zamini barūmandi shi'ar,” Sāda'i Sharq, No. 4, 1976, pp. 147–148.Google Scholar

19. Interviews With Afghan refugees and freedom fighters, Mashhad, Iran, February, 1980.Google Scholar

20. See the following: Rasma Karklins in Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique, Vol. XX1-1, pp. 65–91; Bennigsen, op. cit.; James Critchlow, in The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 3, no. 2, Spring 1980, pp. 47–57; A Valishev in Kommunisti Tajikistan, Jan. 1974; A Quadirov, in ibid. Aug., 1971; Maorif va Madaniyat July 1, 1969; “Caucasian Muslims Disapprove Soviet Action against Islam”, Radio Liberty Research Bulleting No. 38, Sept., 1980; Tajikistani Soveti, Oct. 26, 1969, p. 1; Tajikistani Soveti, Dec. 27, 1969, p. 2; Tajikistani Soveti, Nov. 3, 1979, p. 2, among countless other documents in many of the Soviet languages.Google Scholar