NATIONAL SECURITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN CENTRAL ASIA
Abstract
Once more it has become obvious that the national security and civil society structures in nearly all the Central Asian states are impotent. Political power cannot in the long-term perspective oppose interest groups wishing to penetrate local countries.1
Meanwhile, NGOs are invited to deal with the vitally important issues of international security on an increasingly greater scale. How can the “third sector” be invited to deal with domestic and foreign threats and other deep-cutting political processes without damaging the democratic institutions? How can the state protect the fragile civil institutions from illegal pressure exerted by the power structures and establish viable civilian control? Finally, how can the state tune up the mechanism able to identify “points of contact” and efficient partnership for the sake of common national interests?
The primitive formulation of national security as the “exclusive task of the power structures” and of civil society as the “inevitable alternative to political power” continue to interfere with positive social processes. The lower points of political evolution (the civil war in Tajikistan, the terrorist acts in Uzbekistan, the aborted assassination of the Turkm authorities’ more or less sincere appeals to the nation to help the power structures and increase public vigilance. At these moments, the leaders temporarily abandoned their roles of demiurges of social change, while the local political elite skillfully exploited the national mentality (the ordinary people’s immense trust in the authorities, psychological intolerance of those who oppose the government, the very specific legal culture, etc.) to strengthen law and order.
The “local” conceptual mindset must be re-adjusted in view of the major social and political events that swept the Muslim East in 2005. I am convinced that today national security should be interpreted as a system which minimizes interference in the spiritual and moral world of the nation’s majority and ensures dignified conditions for the nation’s continued existence. Civil society, on the other hand, should be described as a structure created by the dialectics of social development which minimizes the government’s interference in its functioning and will gradually limit the role of the government as a law governed state emerges. The “duet” of national security and civil society, be it realized as a conglomerate, sum total, system, or integral whole, makes it possible to supply the above-mentioned cooperation with a theoretical basis
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Officials of all local countries, Kyrgyzstan includ-ed (where under Akaev the per capita number of NGOs was equal to the East European figures), admit that the institu-tions of civil society are still undeveloped. For example,President of Kyrgyzstan described the local “third sector”and its activities as “marking time” (K. Bakiev, “O partiya-kh bez galstukov i bez obiniakov,” Interview to the MCH newspaper [www.president.kg]).
On 11 September, 2005, President of Kazakhstan Nazarbaev said at the second Civil Forum that “the NGOs play a special role in ensuring personal and social security, as well as human rights and freedoms” [www.akorda.kz]. He described “high living standards” as the main aim of the government/“third sector” cooperation.
In Central Asia, the tragedy of the man-in-the-street included, among other things, the hard task of abandoning Soviet cosmopolitism for the sake of positive nationalism. Political realities—Draw Apart to Unite—demanded difficult spiritual efforts and the willingness to discard old habits. Many proved unequal to this. The majority rejected the past, yet the future was too vague for the intellectuals to nurse optimistic expectations.
The two structures treat the term “territorial integrity” differently, which is probably explained by its power and public “dimensions.” The power aspect is more zealous, more conservative, and more rigid, while the public is more “far-sighted,” more progressive, and more flexible. These are probably the two political extremes that create threats to national security of the second order.
Obviously, national security should be ensured not only to prevent threats, risks, and challenges, but also to promote the individual, human rights and freedoms, and society’s material and spiritual values. In other words, not only short-term, but also long-term national interests responsible for the agenda of partnership of the “first” and “third” sectors are involved.
Significantly, Resolution No. 1624 of the U.N. Security Council approved by the jubilee Summit 2005 speaks, for the first time, not only of the states’ responsibilities, but also of the need to tap civil society’s potential (educational sys-tems, the media, and the business community) to ensure military security. The systems of national security and civil socie-ty obviously share certain problems.
Address by Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation S. Lavrov at Stanford University, San Francisco, 20 Sep-tember, 2005 [www.mid.ru], 24 September, 2005.
I. Karimov, Chelovek, ego prava i svobody, interesy—vysshaia tsennost, Speech delivered at a gala meeting dedi-cated to the 13th anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan [www.press-service.uz].
There are fairly considerable differences between the historical experience of the Central Asian and the West-ern states (the U.S. in particular). There were absolutely comfortable conditions in the United States, where a civil so-ciety grew from the grass-root level. It was based on the Protestant communities that had arrived from England. Today,however, there are certain contradictions between civil society ideals and national security needs. The Patriot Act is one of the examples.
Russian President Putin put this in a nutshell when explaining his position on the improvement of the national laws related to the NGOs and their types of funding. There were different approaches to the problem in Russia, obvious even
inside executive power. As a result the adopted amendments reflected public opinion to a greater extent [than the original version] (see: Vstrecha V. Putina s predsedatelem Soveta po sodeystviu razvitiu institutov grazhdanskogo obshchestva i pravam cheloveka Elloy Pamfilovoy 24 November, 2005 [www.kremlin.ru]).
S.V. Lavrov, op. cit.
[usinfo.state.gov].
[www.mid.ru].
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