Page 2 of
2 Salafists challenge Kazakh
future By Jacob
Zenn
Salafists in the Middle East have
shown strong opposition to the Kazakhstan
government, including the radical Mauritanian
Sheikh Abu-Mundhir al-Shinqiti, who issued a fatwa
in March 2011 saying that it is legal for Muslims
to attack police in Kazkahstan and that there is
an obligation for the Muslims of Kazakhstan to not
be patient, but rather to engage in jihad.
The revolutions in the Arab world have
also emboldened groups like Jund al-Khilafah,
which has urged Kazakhs to "to draw lessons from
the Arab Spring and get rid of their governments"
and sent a message to President Nazarbayev in a
video statement saying that his regime would
follow the same path as
those in Tunisia, Egypt
and Libya because of its "anti-Muslim" policies.
Leading Kazakhstani political analysts who
contributed to a report in late August 2012 called
"Central Asia-2020: An Inside View" have estimated
that the probability of Islamists coming to power
in Central Asia through revolution or mass
protests, such as those in the Arab World, is as
high as 30% in the mid-to-long term. Similarly,
Maulen Ashimbayev, the chairman of the Committee
for International Affairs, Defense and Security of
the Majlis (the Kazakh Parliament's lower house)
says that:
Kazakhstan is probably interesting
to [Salafists] by the fact that we are situated
relatively not far from such complicated regions
as the North Caucasus, Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Iran. Our territory is a transit one for
movements between southern and northern "hot
spots". Therefore, the radical forces have the
wish to entrench themselves here. They are
purposefully working on recruiting supporters
from within the country, attracting, first of
all, young people to their
ranks.
Countering
Salafism Although Kazakhstan has a
reputation for dealing out harsh punishments with
insufficient due process to terror suspects, the
country has taken a more calibrated approach to
countering Salafism. The Kazakh approach
recognizes the role of the intelligentsia,
religious leaders, non-government and public
organizations and the mass media in preventing
isolated Salafist groups from becoming a
large-scale problem in the country.
One
way in which Kazakhstan has sought to prevent
youths from being recruited into extremist
organizations is through educational initiatives.
For example, the Astana mayor's Domestic Policy
Department established a "Center for Research on
Religious Problems and for Psychological
Rehabilitation" in October 2011 to provide
alternative religious education for youths whose
parents or teachers believe they have been
influenced or "brainwashed" by "non-traditional
religiosity," such as Wahhabism.
Similarly, in southeastern Kazakhstan's
Zhambyl province, the Department of Religious
Affairs has begun holding roundtable discussions,
debates, seminars and public opinion polls to help
youths distinguish "between traditional religion
and the harsh rules of destructive cults".
The Zhambyl city of Taraz also unveiled a
memorial depicting the famous Kazakh folk couple
Kozy-Korpesh and Bayan-Sulu after the November
2011 terrorist attack in the city "to symbolize
the struggle against terrorism and to promote
love".
Other strategies to counter the
Salafist ideology include:
Opening the new Nur-Astana mosque, one of
Asia's largest, in Astana in July 2012. The mosque
can seat up to 5,000 worshippers and is designed
to buttress the government's religious
credentials.
Efforts to shut down religious facilities
where Salafists have been reported preaching,
including the Saudi Arabian cultural center in
Almaty.
Placing theologians and psychologists on the
military draft boards to check for signs that
indicate whether new recruits have been influenced
by Salafism.
Monitoring more than 10,000 websites for
extremist content and blocking access to more than
100 such websites.
Conclusion Some of Kazakhstan's
approaches to addressing the spread of Salafism
may be effective in preventing youths from falling
into the trap of an inflexible ideology that has a
tendency towards militancy. Nonetheless, with
Salafism's success in winning recruits on
Kazakhstan's periphery, it will be difficult for
Kazakhstan to succeed in containing the ideology
without the successful efforts of neighboring
states such as Russia and Kyrgyzstan, both of
which have seen Salafism spread in recent years.
For this reason, Kazakhstan has hosted
regional forums to address Salafism, including a
conference in Astana where anti-extremism
cooperation between Turkic-speaking countries was
discussed on September 6.
However, one of
the key domestic issues Kazakhstan will need to
address is the country's political future and
whether religious groups will be able to openly
and freely partake in politics in a
post-Nazarbayev Kazakhstan as in Egypt, Libya and
Tunisia now.
If
Salafist-influenced groups were allowed to
participate in politics, the Kazakh government
would have to develop a political model that is
more attractive to the country's citizens than the
religious model that has won Salafist political
parties votes in formerly secular countries like
Egypt and Tunisia. It is not yet clear what
ideology will guide the next generation of Kazakh
leaders who do not have the legitimacy of
Nazarbayev, the country's first president Finally, there is also the issue
of the hundreds of Central Asians fighting in
Afghanistan who may eventually return home and
bring with them not only the ideology of the
Taliban and al-Qaeda, but also fighting expertise
that could make the militancy of Jund al-Khilafah
today seem small in comparison.
Notes: 1. Andrew
McGregor, "Ambivalence or Radicalism? The
Direction of Political Islam in Kazakhstan,"
Modern Kazakhstan: Between East and West,
Conference at the Munk Centre for International
Studies, University of Toronto, December 5,
2003. 2. Author's discussion with Kazakhstani
official, September 2012. 3. See Statement of
Jund al-Khilafa regarding the events of Zhanaozen:
"Overthrow
the tyrant", December 18, 2011. 4. The two
videos may be viewed here
(July 27, 2012) and here
(August 4, 2012 - summary of the latter at Umma
News, August 4).
Jacob Zenn is a
legal adviser and international security analyst
who graduated from the Johns Hopkins SAIS campus
in Nanjing, China in 2007. He has lived, studied
and worked in Africa and was most recently placed
on assignments in South Sudan and Nigeria. He
writes regularly for the Jamestown Foundation,
Asia Times Online, and the SAIS Central
Asia-Caucasus analyst. He can be contacted at
zopensource123@gmail.com
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