Encounters at the Edge of the Muslim World: A Political Memoir of Kyrgyzstan

Description

This unique work provides the only sustained political history of independent Kyrgyzstan, explaining events in the context of its society and the broader international order. Drawing on three decades of personal encounters with ordinary citizens and leading public figures, Eugene Huskey takes readers on a journey through the unlikely birth and tumultuous development of Central Asia's most open society. Starting with the heady, romantic first days of independence and moving through the popular uprisings and inter-ethnic violence of recent years, he chronicles the struggles of a new state to establish a democratic order and to find its place in the international community, while caught between China, the Middle East, and the Russian world. At the center are the very human stories of leaders and citizens trying to navigate the transition from communism, where identities, property, and the rules of the political game were constantly in dispute. With citizens of independent Kyrgyzstan stripped of their Soviet identity, the book illustrates how alternative loyalties based on kinship, geography, statehood, and religion competed for prominence in ways that often complicated the new country's political, social, and economic development. Contents List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments Note on Usage 1 Conversations with Bolot 2 From Moscow to Bishkek (or Kirgizia, Kirgizstan, Kyrgyzstan) 3 The Present Is History 4 Hope Abounds 5 Traveling the Chu Valley 6 The Power of Words 7 Kyrgyzstan Goes to the Polls 8 Central Asia through Students’ Eyes 9 Falsification and Conciliation 10 Borders and Regions Bedevil a President 11 The Tulip Revolution 12 The Revolution Betrayed 13 Fear Stalks the Land 14 Talk of Kinship, Gender, and Islam 15 Taking the Lonely Road Home 16 The Netherworld of the Opposition 17 Bakiev Falls, Washington Reacts 18 Revolutionary Legality versus Transitional Justice 19 June 2010 20 “We Either Have Fair Elections, or We Have Violence” 21 First Steps on the Parliamentary Road 22 Without Abuse, Power Loses Its Charm 23 Goodbye to Manas 24 In Osh the Past Is Never Dead 25 Preparing for a Presidential Afterlife 26 A Stan Like No Other Notes Selected Bibliography Index About the Author