Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan is one of the 15 countries that emerged from the former Soviet Union, in a region of central Asia that is Muslim and was conquered by Russia centuries ago. Like most nation states, Kyrgyzstan contains ethnic minorities, including in this case an Uzbek minority. Recently I have written an article about the Middle East in which I emphasized the tribal nature of the conflict (not yet accepted for publication). It seems to me that tribal conflicts have in fact dominated the world since time immemorial. WWII can be seen as a tribal conflict of the Germanic tribe against the rest. Since a tribe can be defined in several terms, language, religion, ethnicity, geography and so on, it is clear that many recent conflicts have been in effect tribal, the Irish conflict between Protestants and Catholics (the Catholics are indigenous Irish while the Protestants in the north are primarily Scottish), the Sri Lankan conflict (between southern Buddhist Sinhalese and northern Hindu Tamils), Rwanda (Hutu and Tutsi), Iraq (Sunni, Shi'ites and Kurds), and so on.

To us there seems little difference between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks, they are both Muslim peoples of Turkic origin, and we cannot understand why the Kyrgyz would rise up and attack their neighbors. According to reports several hundred people have been killed and 100,000 Uzbeks have fled to neighboring Uzbekistan. Uzbeks constitute about 14% of the total Kyrgyzstan population of ca. 5 million (Russians are the largest minority at ca. 18%). In the southern city of Osh, Kyrgyz who are armed have attacked their defenceless Uzbek neighbors. There are reports that these attacks might be due to internal political troubles. Neighboring Uzbekistan is a larger country with a population of ca. 25 million, and it is more homogeneous, with ca. 80% Uzbeks. If the situatioin deteriorates it could lead to war in central Asia.

In Europe, there have been many similar ethnic conflicts, Hungarians and Romanians, French and Germans, Dutch (Flemish ) and French (Walloons) in Belgium, Italian and Austrian (in the Tyrol). When ethnic groups are split by national borders (such as the Hungarians in Romania, the German-speaking (Alsatians) in France) there is always the chance of further conflict. It takes a democratic system to ensure tolerance of minority rights. Because of the development of the EU, ethnic minorities are currently quiescent, but in central Asia, where the divisions are still new and often raw, the conflicts continue. For example, the Chechens and the Russians, the Georgians and the Abkhazians, and so on.

If we consider the Middle East conflict between Jews and Arabs in this context, it is easier to understand it as a tribal conflict, where religion, language, and ethnicity are quite distinct. Nevertheless, there is more concern for the Palestinians among western liberals than there is for Uzbeks. As far as western liberals are concerned their lives are not worth a single demonstration, because their enemies are not Jews.