[lg policy] Tajikistan: LANGUAGE ROW RILES RUSSIANS

Thu Aug 27 14:09:24 UTC 2009

TAJIKISTAN: LANGUAGE ROW RILES RUSSIANS
Konstantin Parshin 8/26/09

Over a month after President Imomali Rahmon introduced legislation
that would abolish Russian as a language of "interethnic
communication," Tajikistan remains abuzz with hype and fear about the
potential change. Officials in Dushanbe argue that a policy alteration
is needed to bolster Tajikistan’s sovereignty. But Russian leaders are
warning that any move to alter the status quo would result in serious
economic consequences for Dushanbe. Under current legislation, all
government documents must be in either or both Tajik and Russian.
Under the new draft law, all government functions would be performed
exclusively in Tajik.

Russian is still widely spoken in Tajikistan, especially in
interactions involving members of different ethnic groups, such as
Tajiks and Uzbeks. Many non-Tajik residents of Tajikistan do not have
a solid grasp of the Tajik language. Russian has enjoyed official
status since 1989, prior to the demise of the Soviet empire. Rahmon’s
administration has been coming under increasing domestic pressure in
2009, as the country’s economy has struggled during the global
financial slowdown. Some experts see the proposed language revisions
as an effort to bolster the president’s domestic position. "The
destiny of the nation depends on the destiny of its language," Rahmon
said on July 22, in comments marking the 20th anniversary of Tajik
becoming the state language. "One can judge the greatness of the
nation by judging the respect to the national language among
representatives of this nation." At the time, he urged the Tajik
parliament to rapidly act on his initiative to alter the official
status of Russian.

Russian politicians angrily responded to Rahmon’s initiative,
suggesting that any effort to reduce the status of Russian would
provoke punitive economic measures by Moscow. One called for the
implementation of a visa regime for Tajiks, a move that could
drastically curtail the number of Tajik guest workers in Russia. Labor
migrant remittances are a crucial pillar of the Tajik economy. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Moscow and Dushanbe have
traded frequent barbs over the past year over the poor treatment of
Tajik guest workers in Russia and the low level of Russian investment
in Tajikistan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Immediately prior to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s late July
visit to Dushanbe, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily quoted Russian
presidential aide Sergey Prihodko as saying the Tajik authorities
"should be interested in this [preservation of Russian language] more
than us. If they stop speaking Russian, Tajik guest workers will not
be able to work here." Some Russian MPs have ominously warned that
meddling with language policy could prove politically destabilizing
for Rahmon at home. "The implementation of the law, according to which
the Russian language is losing its status of interethnic communication
will provoke a mutiny [in Tajikistan]," said Alexei Ostrovsky,
chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Committee on CIS Affairs on July
23.

The Tajik Foreign Ministry in late July sought to mollify Moscow,
issuing a statement noting that the Russian language’s status was
protected in the Tajik Constitution. It went on to assure Russian
authorities that no changes to the constitution were anticipated. But
analysts believe that Rahmon is perfectly capable of engineering
constitutional amendments. "Regrettably, nationalistic moods are very
strong among some parliamentarians and government officials. The
constitution can be changed by means of a referendum," Lidia Isamova,
a Tajik journalist and political expert, told EurasiaNet.

On condition of anonymity, another Russian-speaking ethnic Tajik
journalist predicted that a language change could have unpredictable
domestic economic ramifications. "More than a half of my colleagues
would lose their jobs if the draft law is adopted. We won’t be able to
ask questions at press conferences, and our employers won’t find
interpreters for us," the journalist said. Institutions of higher
learning, at which Russian is the primary language of instruction,
would also suffer, some experts warn. Rahmon has shown a previous
willingness to make language-related changes. In 2007 -- amid another
ebb in relations with Moscow -- he refashioned his own family name,
and forbade newborns from bearing their parents’ Russified family
names ending in "-ov." [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive].

Analysts believe the president is trying to use lansguage as leverage,
aiming to increase the amount of financial assistance flowing to
Tajikistan from Russia. Some add that the language issue has proven to
be a double-edged sword in the past for Tajikistan. "In 1989 the
endorsement of the language law [making Tajik the official language]
resulted in a mass exodus from the country. Adoption of the new law
can provoke the repetition of the ’1989 syndrome,’" Victor Kim,
coordinator of the Tajik Alliance of National Minorities, told the
Asia Plus news agency on July 22, referring to the brain drain of the
early 1990s.

Gaffor Juraev, head of the government commission on implementation of
the state language law, and one of the authors of the draft bill,
believes "the law is needed" to promote Tajikistan’s sovereignty. "All
citizens of Tajikistan must know the state language -- at least out of
respect to the country where they live," he said, in comments to Asia
Plus. He added that talk of a fresh exodus caused by any new,
potential changes was "absurd." For many ordinary Tajiks, however, the
move would represent an unnecessary intrusion into their daily lives.
"My mother is a Pamiri Tajik, and my father is Russian. My husband is
from Belarus, but he is not sure about his ethnic roots. And who are
my children? They are not Tajiks, but they are Tajikistani! We have
always been proud of our multiethnic past," said Nigina Ruslanova, a
schoolteacher in Dushanbe.

The chairman of Tajikistan’s Communist Party, Shodi Shabdolov, is
among those Tajiks who oppose tinkering with language legislation.
"The exclusion of Russian language as the language of interethnic
communication from the new draft law [would be] a serious mistake," he
told Asia Plus. "The status of Russian language in the draft law is
underestimated -- in political, educational and scientific respects.
Russian is acknowledged as the language of international communication
in CIS countries. Moreover, Russian is one of the official UN
languages.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav082609a.shtml

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