State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror

Rating:
Summary: inaccurate in its review of at least one country
Review: I can only judge the article on the the government failure in Tajikistan, as it is a country I both lived in and studied for many years. The author, Nasrin Dadmehr, explains the weakness of the current state by examining its historical background, but that background, as he presents it, is full of omissions and inaccuracies.

For instance, the word "basmachi" used to describe the armed rebel groups in 1920's Central Asia, does not mean "bandits" in Russian, as he claims. It means nothing in Russian because it is not of Russian origin but was adopted from one of the local languages, Tajik or Uzbek.

Another example is that the author keeps referring to the two factions fighting for control over government as "Communists" and "Islamists". It is true that these labels have been exploited by both sides in order to attract foreign aid from countries where those things matter (such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Russia). However, the actual division is based entirely on people's ethnic/regional affiliations. So unless you accept the idea that everyone born in Kulab is a Communist and a Gharmi accent automatically makes one a devout Muslim, those labels mean as much as the logos of two opposing teams in a football field. Chicago Bears are not really bears, the "Islamist opposition forces" are not united by Islam, and there has not been any Communists in Tajikistan for many years, apart from perhaps a few senior citizens nostalgic for the times when they had something to eat. So whenever anyone describes the conflict in Tajikistan as a struggle between Communists and Islamists it is a good indication that they have very little knowledge or understanding of the political situation in that country.

There are plenty of other inaccuracies as well, like the description of May 1992 events. According to the author, this is when "backed by popular support and two months of non-stop demonstrations <the opposition forces> succeeded in imposing a coalition government on the communists." In reality, the "imposing" part involved an ambush of the city airport by a heavily armed group of militants who proceeded to capture President Nabiyev as he was trying to flee the country and forced him, at a gunpoint, to sign his resignation. There was no "coalition government" created, and the following few months of the opposition's rule were filled with as much oppression and extreme violence towards Kulabis as was later directed at Gharmis when the power switched back around.

The two-month long non-stop demonstrations that had led to this incident included one for the opposition and one supporting the government. Both were heavily organized, with people being recruited and bussed in from remote villages to be fed, clothed, and financially compensated for the two months of camping in the middle of the city. No information about who was paying for all that "expression of popular will" on either side was ever publicly released.

Even if these omissions in the article seem minor or irrelevant, they reduce the complexity of the war in Tajikistan to a "goodies vs. baddies" comic-book type scaffle that incidentally brings about the collapse of the government. The collapse itself and the resulting chaos is described quite well. But glancing over so many important aspects of what had led to it makes the resulting analysis somewhat skewed and one-sided.