|
Going as tourists, of course, constrained our ability to report. There would be no sessions with government officials, no briefings at foreign embassies. Still, we managed to see dissidents, activists and families of victims of Karimov's repression, as well as ordinary citizens who would become obviously uncomfortable anytime a vaguely political subject came up. "Just like the old days," Andrei put it. Throughout the trip we were acutely mindful of the risks to those we met who knew we were journalists. For us, getting caught committing journalism under false pretenses probably meant a one-way ticket home. For people we met with, it might mean a one-way ticket to a gulag. For that reason, some of the identities of the people in this story have been altered, and the location of some places we visited obscured.
Ping-Pong Diplomacy
The most important Islamic school in Bukhara, Mir-i-Arab, lies just across the broad square from the city's magnificent 16th century blue-domed mosque known as Kalyan. After the Friday prayer service, Andrei and I walked across the plaza and tried—unsuccessfully—to talk our way into the madrasah. Tourists are permitted in the entryway, but no farther.
Later that day, however, we got a break. Yuri had somehow managed to talk his way into the school. If we came by later, he told us by phone, the cleric in charge would see us. When we arrived, the imam was in a meeting and we were ushered into an office where three faculty members greeted us. One, who gave his name as Ahmed, taught English, another, Hamid, was a math teacher, and the third—well, he didn't volunteer what he taught.
In Uzbekistan, Islamic radicals have long been referred to, particularly by the Russian minority in the country, as Wahhabis, shorthand for those who pursue the most austere—and intolerant—strain of Islam. Saudi Arabia is the spiritual and financial home of Wahhabism, and the Saudis have funded Islamic schools the world over, Uzbekistan included. We didn't need our three faculty members to tell us that the Bukhara madrasah is not one of them (though at one point Hamid, the math teacher, cheerfully volunteered this).
But make no mistake: Islamic extremism does exist in Uzbekistan; Karimov is not conjuring up threats out of thin air. Long before 9/11, he was at war with radical Islam. In the late 1990s he helped funnel aid to ethnic Uzbek warlords in northern Afghanistan who were fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda—and was angry that the U.S. didn't do more to help. In early 1999, he narrowly escaped a bombing attempt in Tashkent's central square. Though it was never clear who tried to kill him, Karimov went after the local Wahabbis, ultimately arresting or detaining up to 2,000 alleged militants. In 2004, jihadists and government forces clashed over three days in Tashkent and Bukhara; according to Radio Free Europe, up to 47 people died in the fighting. That's why mosques and madrasahs like Kalyan are squarely under the government's thumb, regulated by the state—and secretly monitored by the National Security Service. Since we weren't there as journalists, we couldn't exactly interview our three hosts directly about any of this. I started the conversation by asking, "What's a madrasah?" and Andrei told them of the first time he had been to Uzbekistan, 30-odd years ago as a member of an élite junior table-tennis team from Moscow. Apparently, Andrei had been something of a prodigy, and when he was 12 the team traveled to Uzbekistan to take on the rival squad in Tashkent.
At some point however, my questions about Islam in Uzbekistan apparently became a little too persistent. The mostly silent, nameless gentleman sitting across from us piped up: "There has never been an extremist graduate from this madrasah, and there never will be." Then Hamid the math teacher asked Andrei if he wanted to play Ping-Pong. This served not only to end our meeting, but also as a test. They were going to find out whether this stranger could actually play, or not. And if he couldn't, our summer holiday in Uzbekistan was going to be over early.
|
