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ISLAM IN THE SOCIAL-POLITICAL CONTEXT OF KYRGYZSTAN
Cholpon CHOTAEVA
Cholpon Chotaeva, Ph.D., research associate at the Tohuku University (Sendai, Japan)
National resurrection of the Central Asian republics that took place at the turn of the 1990s went hand in hand with religious and cultural revival, rise of nationalism and ethnic awareness, and return to the Muslim traditions. The local peoples became aware of the need to identify themselves as full-blooded nations and full-blooded confessional and cultural communities.
Society was embracing Islam not only in the context of rejection of Marxist ideology, establishment of democratic institutions, and economic liberalization, but of a slump of living standards as well. During the transition Islam is becoming an instrument for overcoming mass alienation and social inequality, it has begun to serve as a psychological sheet anchor in the sea of instability and social changes. It is used to oppose the local cultural and religious traditions to Western individualism, to preserve national specifics, and restore the nation’s self-respect. Due to the fact that traditional institutions and ideas remain relevant people tend to use old habitual formulas to assess new developments. To find a remedy for modern problems they turn to the past. The modern and the traditional merge in their minds to give birth to something new, which is different in form and content.
In Soviet and post-Soviet times Kyrgyzstan remained a traditional society in which customs of the past dominate. The cultural traditions and customs continue to regulate social relations and are a part of social consciousness despite the efforts at secularization and desacralization of life carried out in Soviet times. The individual’s social status is gradually changing: the individual is retreating in the face of the clan and regional social structure while all important political and economic issues are dealt with in the context of the tribal, clan and regional power institutions.
This explains why the place and role of Islam in social life and people’s minds have so many aspects. In Kyrgyzstan Islam is not merely a religious system, it is rather a civilization that, all changes of material life notwithstanding, has preserved its significance as a sociocultural system. Special spiritual and axiological landmarks determine human behavior, people’s ideas about life and………………..
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