Mediating the Conflict in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan
The Hegemonic Narrative and Anti-Hegemonic Challenges
In: Central Asian AffairsSearch for other papers by Edward Lemon in
Current site
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Between 2009 and 2011 Tajikistan experienced one of the worst bouts of political violence since the end of the country’s civil war. The fighting was concentrated in the Rasht Valley, an area traditionally associated with opposition to the regime. As a result, the government attempted to fix the meaning of the conflict around the signifiers “international terrorism” and “radical Islam.” This framing directly reproduced the regime’s hegemony through legitimating the removal of opponents and contrasting the Tajik “self” with the terrorist “other.” The hegemonic narrative was incomplete and contained inconsistencies. As a result, anti-hegemonic actors attempted to undermine its legitimacy. Although these critical articulations destabilized the narrative, due to their dispersed and divergent nature, it ultimately maintained its hegemonic position.
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1
Francois Debrix, Tabloid Terror: War, Culture, and Geopolitics (London: Routledge, 2008), 4.
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2
Roger Kangas, “State Building and Civil Society in Central Asia,” in Political Culture and Civil Society in the Soviet Successor States, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu (Armonk, ny: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 271.
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3
Nick Megoran, “Framing Andijon, Narrating the Nation: Islam Karimov’s Account of the Events of 13 May 2005,” Central Asian Survey, 27, no. 1, (2008): 15–31; Nick Megoran, “The Critical Geopolitics of Danger in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan,” Environment and Planning, 23 (2004): 555–580; S. Horsman, “Themes of Official Discourses on Terrorism in Central Asia,” Third World Quarterly, 26, no. 1 (2005): 199–213; John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran, “Contesting Danger: A New Agenda for Policy and Scholarship in Central Asia,” International Affairs, 87, no. 3, (2011): 589–612.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
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12
Ibid.; Jorgen Staun, “When, How, and Why Elites Frame Terrorists: A Wittgensteinian Analysis of Terror and Radicalisation,” Critical Studies in Terrorism, 3, no. 3 (2010): 403–420.
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14
Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), 4.
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16
Ibid., p. 110.
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18
Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and the Socialist Strategy, p. 111.
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20
Bruno De Cordier, “Islamic Faith-Based Development Organizations in Former Soviet Muslim Environments: The Mountain Societies Development Support Programme in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan,” Central Asian Survey, 27, no. 2, (2008): 169–84; Heathershaw and Roche, “Islam and Political Violence in Tajikistan.”
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21
Botakoz Kassymbekova, “Humans as Territory: Forced Resettlement and the Making of Soviet Tajikistan, 1920–38,” Central Asian Survey, 30, no. 3 (2011): 349–370.
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22
Kirill Nourzhanov, “Saviors of the Nation or Robber Barons? Warlord Politics in Tajikistan,” Central Asian Survey, 24, no. 2 (2005): 109–130; J. Driscoll, “Exiting Anarchy: Militia Politics after the Post-Soviet Wars,” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2009).
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26
Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988).
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27
Ibid., p. 210.
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28
Chantal Mouffe, Gramsci and Marxist Theory (London: Kegan Paul and Routledge, 1979).
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30
Sherali Khairulloev, “Ki az ki Boyad Uzr Pursad?” Khovar, October 4, 2010, http://khovar.tj/archive/15698-k1250-az-k1250-boyad-uzr-pursad.html (accessed May 2013).
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35
Muriel Atkin, “The Politics of Polarization in Tajikistan,” in Central Asia: Its Strategic Importance and Future Prospects, ed. H. Malik (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1994), 211–231; Tim Epkenhans, “Defining Normative Islam: Some Remarks on Contemporary Islamic Thought in Tajikistan—Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda’s Sharia and Society,” Central Asian Survey, 30, no. 1 (2011): 81–96.
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36
Sally Cummings, Understanding Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2012), 115.
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40
Scott Poynting and David Whyte, Counter-Terrorism and State Political Violence: The War on Terror as Terror (London: Routledge, 2012).
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41
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983).
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Lena Hansen, Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006).
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R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia (St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
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45
Simon Dalby, “Imperialism, Domination, Culture: The Continued Relevance of Critical Geopolitics,” Geopolitics, 13, no. 3 (2008): 413–436.
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46
Tajik Television First Channel, 1300, April 16, 2011.
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47
Ole Wæver, “European Security Identities,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 34, no. 1 (1996): 103–132.
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48
John Heathershaw, Post-Conflict Tajikistan: The Politics of Peacebuilding and the Emergence of Legitimate Order (London: Routledge, 2009), 19.
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49
Muriel Atkin, “Islam as Faith, Politics, and Bogeyman in Tajikistan,” in The Politics of Religion in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed. Michael Bordeaux (Armonk, ny: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 247–271; V.I. Bushkov and D.V. Mikulskii, Istoria Grazhdanskoii Voini v Tadzhikistane (Moscow: Poligraphservis, 1996); H. Blakkisrud and S. Nozimova, “History Writing and Nation Building in Post–Independence Tajikistan,” Nationalities Papers, 28, no. 2 (2010): 173–189.
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51
Barnett Rubin, “Russian Hegemony and State Breakdown at the Periphery: Causes and Consequences of the Tajik Civil War,” in Post-Soviet Political Order: Conflict and State Building, ed. Jack Snyder (London: Routledge, 1998).
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52
Tajik Television First Channel, 1300, October 23, 2010.
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62
Megoran, “Framing Andijon, Narrating the Nation”; Richard Jackson, “Constructing Enemies: Islamic Terrorism in Political and Academic Discourse,” Government and Opposition, 42, no. 3 (2007): 394–426.
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65
Collette Harris, Control and Subversion: Gender in Tajikistan (London: Pluto Press, 2004).
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66
Fetherston, “Peacekeeping, Conflict Resolution, and Peacebuilding,” p. 210.
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69
On July 24, 2012, after the murder of a government official, security forces attacked militants in Khorog, Gorno Badakhshan, leaving more than 42 dead.
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76
John Heathershaw, “Of National Fathers and Russian Elder Brothers: Conspiracy Theories and Political Ideas in Post-Soviet Central Asia,” The Russian Review, 71 (2012): 610–629.
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79
Nurali Davlatov, “Kamarob: Khuni 25 Nafar ba Gardani Kist?” Farazh, September 22, 2010, 4; “Lukhtakikhoi Gilin,” Farazh, September 29, 2010: 1.
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81
Tajik Television First Channel, 1600, September 29, 2010.
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83
Sherali Khairulloev, “Ki az ki Boyad Uzr Pursad?” Khovar, October 4, 2010, http://khovar.tj/archive/15698-k1250-az-k1250-boyad-uzr-pursad.html (accessed March 2014).
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90
Khaidar Shodiyev, “Kak Pogib Mirzo Ziyoev?” Asia Plus, July 14, 2011, http://news.tj/ru/newspaper/article/kak-pogib-mirzo-zieev (accessed July 2013).
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Mediating the Conflict in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan
The Hegemonic Narrative and Anti-Hegemonic Challenges
In: Central Asian AffairsSearch for other papers by Edward Lemon in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Between 2009 and 2011 Tajikistan experienced one of the worst bouts of political violence since the end of the country’s civil war. The fighting was concentrated in the Rasht Valley, an area traditionally associated with opposition to the regime. As a result, the government attempted to fix the meaning of the conflict around the signifiers “international terrorism” and “radical Islam.” This framing directly reproduced the regime’s hegemony through legitimating the removal of opponents and contrasting the Tajik “self” with the terrorist “other.” The hegemonic narrative was incomplete and contained inconsistencies. As a result, anti-hegemonic actors attempted to undermine its legitimacy. Although these critical articulations destabilized the narrative, due to their dispersed and divergent nature, it ultimately maintained its hegemonic position.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 688 | 114 | 38 |
| Full Text Views | 204 | 17 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 99 | 23 | 0 |