CIVIL FORUMS N CENTRAL ASIA: GOALS, SPECIFICS, POTENTIAL
Abstract
In Central Asia, society is divided into three segments: the power vertical, business structures, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which largely interact in keeping with time-tested international practices. What is more, the historical-cultural and national-religious characteristics of the region’s countries are modifying the structure of civil society in ways that are turning the nation-wide consolidation processes into something of a mindbender for researchers. This, together with the growing geopolitical role of the Central Asian countries, is giving research of the evolution of democratic institutions in these republics' vital scientific significance.
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References
Speech by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev at the Civil Forum (Astana, 15 October, 2003) [www.president.kz].
See: Oina-Samarkand, No. 32, 1914, p. 623b; Khurriat-Samarkand, 3 May, 1917. For more detail, see: Uzbekistan na puti k grazhdanskomu obshchestvu, Shark, Tashkent, 2003, p. 91.
See, for example: “Rukovodstvuias obshchenatsionalnymi interesami,” Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 18 January, 2003.
See: G. Pavlovskiy, Grazhdanskii forum dolzhen polozhit nachalo formirovaniiu obshchestvennogo shtaba prezident-skoi kampanii [www.rambler.ru/db/news].
Held on 29-30 October, 1998, the Forum of Women’s Nongovernmental Organizations of Tajikistan was distinguished,for example, by specific proposals to the authorities, international organizations, and NGOs, as well as by the priorities of the gender theme.
See: N. Nazarbaev, Main Areas of Domestic and Foreign Policy for 2004. The Message of the President of the Country to the people of Kazakhstan, Astana, 4 April, 2003 [http://www.president.kz].
A. Akaev, Speech at the opening of the Partner Forum “Kyrgyz Statehood of the Third Millennium: New Ways and Mechanisms of Partnership of State Power and a Civil Society” [http://www.president.kg].
E. Rakhmonov, Otvetstvennost’ za budushchee natsii. Speech by the Tajikistan President to the Majlisi oli [www.tajikistan.ru].
NNO—In Uzbekistan: nongovernmental noncommercial organization.
See: I.A. Karimov, “Osnovnye napravlenia dal’neishego uglublenia demokraticheskikh preobrazovanii i formirovania osnov grazhdanskogo obshchestva. Doklad na IX sessii Olii Majlisa Respubliki Uzbekistan vtorogo sozyva 29 avgusta 2002 g.,”Narodnoe slovo, 30 August, 2002.
See: A. Akaev, Speech at the Opening of the Partner Forum...
A. Akaev, Speech at the Opening of the Partner Forum...
According to official data, there are currently more than 1,000 NGOs active in the republic, many of them participated actively in implementing the Public Consent Treaty in Tajikistan.
See: M. Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society, Culture, Vol. 2, Blackwell, Oxford, 1997, p. 2.
As an example of positive initiative, we could present the interregional forums held in Uzbekistan by NNOs of the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic and the Khorezm Region.
We would like to limit ourselves here to only two examples illustrating our thesis: discussion at the end of 2003 by the civil society institutions in Kazakhstan of the new law on mass media, as well as the scientific polemics around the Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan published with help from the Soros Foundation.
In any case, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez noted, we need to talk not about controllable democracy, but about democratic controllability.
A. Pochinok, Printsip finansirovaniia sotsialnoi sfery neobkhodimo meniat [http://www.robalt.ru].
It seems that the time will come in Central Asia when the participation of the power vertical in the triumvirate of civil society becomes proportional to the participation of business and the “third sector.”
As predecessors of the efficient interregional forums, we can single out the Central Asian Youth Congress (2-24 Octo-ber, 2002), the Central Asian Meeting of Leaders of Women’s NGOs (14-16 October, 2003), and several others. We can also refer to the experience of progressive countries, for example, to interregional civil forums of North European countries held within the framework of the Council of the Baltic Sea States.
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