There now, is that not a good lede? But it's true—Well, okay, I wasn't actually leaning against the cooler; just sitting next to it, with my head tilted to one side. And I didn't actually drink the beer, but blame that on my sour tummy. And by "old," I mean "decomissioned," in the same sense that the "old" Episcopal Church is now a Chinese restaurant. Anyway, the point is that here in Uzbekistan (specifically, Bukhara, one of the jewels in the Islamic crown), they wear their faith with a kind of relaxed ease that we don't know much about in the more general world. And it isn't just Bukhara: back in Samarkand, I joined a crowd doing some cheerful group dancing in another former holy place: my friend Max called it “Fiddler in the Mosque.”
It's not that they're not Muslim; by all accounts, the vast majority of Central Asians identify themselves as Muslim (except the Russians, who identify as Orthodox). But I said they were easygoing, and everything I saw about the practice of the faith is enough to ratify the point. From what I gather it has long been that way—one reason, perhaps, why the faith was able to survive 75 years of Soviet secularism. At any rate, it is what you feel there now.
It is, if nothing else, a useful reminder (a) that Islam is various and (b) it is our (everybody's?) bad luck that the oil money all fell on the Wahabis and their close kin, aka the most intolerant and dangerous among them, putting the screamers in the best position to grab the microphone (or the grenade) and to finance newer, more toxic medrassahs in number of places, not excluding central Asia.
More pessimistic observers will say I'm deluding myself: that radical Islam is in truth a cancer on the Central Asian body politic, and growing fast. I've no doubt that they could make a case for their view: the extremist variety does indeed seem to be driving the Islamic engine almost everywhere (and in repressive countries like these, it is bound to be the extremists who drive the engine of dissent). My point is that from walking the streets and such, you'd never guess it. Moreover, if you were a corrupt autocrat in a little-known distant country, if you did have political difficulties, whom would you try to blame? While I was in Bukhara, I read about how police were clashing with “Islamic extremists” in Ashghabat, scheduled as a later stop. Maybe so, but you get to Ashghabat and you quickly perceive that the “government” in power here is surely the most autocratic of a bad lot. If you're the autocrat, you are not going to tell the Western press that you are beating the heads of ordinary people who just want to get about their business: the extremist card is the one you are bound to play. By the way, did I mention that Turkmenistan has a thriving wine industry? On my sample, the stuff tastes like battery acid, but their heart seems to be in the right place.
One detects a vicious circle here: an autocratic government generates an angry and aggressive response, which triggers more head-besting, which triggers more anger and aggression. It is easy to predict a bad end here. Meanwhile, I think I'll head back to the medrassah and kick back with a brew.
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