The BBC Will Answer to Allah

Ferghana.ru has a fascinating story (also available in Uzbek and Russian) on the Uzbek government’s use of the officially sanctioned Islamic establishment to promote state policies. They say that speeches by members of the religious establishment are repeatedly broadcast on state television to add some religious backing to the government’s dictates. The excerpts from a speech by Abdulaziz Mansur are quite interesting.

It is worth giving the whole thing a read, and if you can read Uzbek, that version of the story is much longer and includes sections on “Half-educated Sufis,” drug addiction, and “stability and hooligans” (gazandalar — literally “biting and stinging creatures”).

There are, however, a few parts of the English version that caught my eye.

Mansur tears into all those who have emigrated since independence. Anyone, he says, who claims to have left for reasons of religious oppression is a liar. Those who left for the same reasons or to protect their wealth from the Soviets did so for acceptable reasons, he says.

He also says that young people need protection from false religious teaching a true ideology. Of course, there is only one place to get it.

Faith is ideology. National and religious ideologies are inseparable. Speaking of ideological matters, our respected president always emphasizes that “this is not a state ideology, it is a national ideology. Our state does not intend to enforce its ideology the way the Soviet power did once.”

Sure, it is merely the sole permissible supplier. But then again, it is only doing its job, projecting people from other sources of information that are merely falsehoods born out of jealousy of Uzbekistan’s prosperity.

When a country is prosperous, others envy it, its people, and its leader. There have always been envious people. Shall we trust them and their provocations? There are lots of radio broadcasters and other media outlets nowadays (like RL, BBC, and so on) that are always on a lookout for anything to smear one with. I listen to their programs so as to know what they are talking about, so as to be able to answer their innuendo. My answers are simple: that’s a lie and a provocation. They will answer to Allah for it one day. Some credulous people in the meantime may take this nonsense at face value. We must explain things to the people, we must tell the people the truth… We must denounce all of that as a lie. Thousands attend mosques, and that makes mosques places where people should be talked to and explained everything.

And it is because of guys like Abdulaziz Mansur that one may assume he is being quite literal in claiming that mosque attendance is in the thousands. It is bad enough that the state usually acts like it is on a crusade against all those who so much as look at it cross-eyed. Making the mosques part of the show only makes the official religious line less appealing.