Religious Extremism and Fundamentalism

by Islam Karimov,

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan

The end of the twentieth century -the century of astonishing scientific inventions, of man's penetration into the mysteries of the universe, of information and amazing technical opportunities - has become, even though it sounds paradoxical, a period of renaissance for religious values, a period of return to quiet, peaceful spirituality.
Islam, one of the major world religions, is no exception to this global trend. On the contrary, events that have taken place in recent decades both in the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds have given us grounds to start talking about a so-called 'Islamic boom' in the world community.
Numerous politicians, scholars and journalists have tried to offer their understanding of the reasons for this phenomenon at the end of the twentieth century, a phenomenon which has been given various names: 'Islamic renaissance', 'reislamization', 'phenomenon of Islam', etc. Without debating these concepts, it is necessary to focus attention on the events associated with the rebirth of Islamic values, which are very diversified, many sided, sometimes controversial and even contradictory.
It is obvious that the great interest of world public opinion in these processes is accompanied by an evident feeling of alertness, and even caution, with regard to such excessive manifestations as religious extremism and fundamentalism. Unfortunately, modern history has accumulated many facts to testify that these extremely radical manifestations give rise to serious conflicts and contradictions, and threaten stability and security. That is why mankind is scared. Such manifestations provoke in us grave anxiety from the point of view of the need to strengthen Uzbekistan's sovereignty and to ensure its security.
Before we proceed to a direct analysis of the potential threats endangering our region implicit in religious extremism and fundamentalism, I would like to draw attention to some highly delicate aspects of the problems connected with the religious beliefs of people, in order to make clear the difference between the spiritual values of religion and certain ambitions - political and other aggressive goals - which are far from religious, which certain forces try to make us achieve using slogans, inter alia the Islamic revival.
The very fact of the stable existence of religions, including Islam, for millennia testifies that they have deep roots in human nature and perform a set of essential functions. Being predominantly the spiritual sphere of society, groups and individuals, religion has absorbed and reflects universal norms of morality, making them compulsory standards of behavior. It has considerably- influenced culture and has helped/is helping to overcome human isolation and alienation from other human beings.
What is more, religion (we have grounds to state this using the example of Islam, the religion of our ancestors" strengthens people's faith, purifies and elevates, and makes them stronger in overcoming the trials of human existence; it has also contributed to, and sometimes been the sole means of preserving and transferring, universal and spiritual values from generation to generation. That is why religion is a reliable companion to human beings, and a natural part of human life.
While acknowledging the important role of religion, it should be pointed out at the same time that the religious conception of the world has not been the only way of thinking about man's attitude towards the world and towards his kind. Parallel with this, and with the same right to existence, has been the development of what is usually called secular thinking or a secular way of living.
Perhaps it is precisely this coexistence of different attitudes, unfortunately not always peaceful in comprehending the reason for living, that has promoted the richness and variety of the human world. Its spiritual activity is a stimulus to its development, because a society- composed of similarly reasoning people would become gray instead of multicolored.
In the present-day- world, which affirms the worth and priority of each human being, of each personality, this contradiction has been transformed into the recognition of his right to freedom of thought, to freedom to profess any religion or not to profess any. Human beings are unable, for natural reasons, to choose their race or ethnic identity, or to select their parents, but their world outlook and their spiritual and moral choices can and must be made privately without anybody's pressure or enforcement. And this choice should be respected.
Religion, as a component of social life, is linked inextricably with other spheres of social life, exerting influence but also influenced by the impact of social pressures. It is not accidental that most of the religious systems existing today were formed during periods of social, economic and political revolution and crisis. This shows that religion has, throughout human history, been employed to a greater or lesser degree to achieve political goals which were not always noble.
Unfortunately, the history of mankind has many examples of people's faith, a component of religious consciousness, being used not as a constructive power, but as a destructive force, as fanatism, which is characterized by such features or manifestations as a passionate conviction in the veracity of only one confession and an accompanying intolerance towards all others.
Precisely those people or groups of people who are guilty of fanatism are capable of generating the greatest destabilization in society because, by painting such movements as `people's actions', they enable the population to relinquish feelings of personal responsibility for individual actions.
An unconditional confidence in the ownership of a monopoly in truth can become the ground for the growth of religious extremism, which is characterized by an inclination to radical violent actions. The targets for such actions may be chosen either from among individuals and social groups of heterodoxies or from among
members of the same confession who are rejected by representatives of similar faith.
It would be fair to recognize that `upheavals' of religious fanatism do not originate only in religious contradictions in themselves, but predominantly in unsolved social, political and economic problems. Strictly speaking, the same problems cause fanaticisms of other kinds, for example the fanaticism of Bolsheviks and nationalists.
Any religious system of itself is not able to make any recommendations on the settlement of social and economic problems. No religious system contains concrete measures corresponding to the modern level of world development, and the religious fundamentalists' appeal to a return to the circumstances in which the religions originated may hardly be considered as constructive and viable.
The phenomenon of religious revival during recent decades has become evident in the so-called post-Soviet area. Of course, religious life has never stood still; even under the administrative-command system it acquired quite specific forms. But the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties became a period of religious revival in society on the one hand, and of the formation of prerequisites for religion-based conflicts on the other.
The importance of this problem demands a thorough analysis of the causes behind the rise of the Islamic factor in all its diversity in our region during the period of the establishing and strengthening of state sovereignty of countries within the region.
Firstly, there was the crushing of the former system of ideological concepts and values and the need to fill a temporary vacuum.
It is common knowledge that the communist ideology - which lacks spirituality, is fanatical and anti-national in character contributed greatly to the formation of the prerequisites for religious fundamentalism and traditionalism within post-Soviet space. This spread not only to Islam, but also to Judaism and Christianity Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian-Gregorian, Protestant-Lutheran, Baptist.
All these we could witness in Uzbekistan as a sample, where over 100 nationalities and nations, and almost 15 religious confessions are represented.
The ruling communist party of the former USSR regarded the religious confessional communities as their rivals in the struggle for people's minds and throughout its entire history resorted to severe measures aimed at curbing religion, and subordinating its few surviving clergy.
Thousands of Islamic religious devotees were subjected to repression. Thousands of mosques and hundreds of madrasahs, which were buildings of great architectural and historical significance for our people and world civilization, were destroyed. The bulk of believers had no access to the Koran until the mid nineties. Religion was deliberately exploited as a weapon in the ideological struggle.
For the same reasons in the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, where Islamic education was banned, only a small number of highly educated Islamic teachers could exist. Instead there flourished all kinds of superstitions, sometimes reactionary, which still today from time to time claim to possess the higher truth, and try to impose it on the entire population and to control the people's destiny.
At present and in the future we, the people of Uzbekistan, do not want to tolerate either the sad experience of the Soviet era or the new extreme manifestations that we have witnessed during the first years of our independence.
Secondly, there is the growth of national self-consciousness and the attempt to nurture an ethnic self-identification - major elements which have traditionally been regarded as the components of a well defined religious orientation.
There is an interesting concept elaborated by Western European experts about the role of religion, specifically of Islam, in the newly independent states of Central Asia. According to their evaluations `views from outside are often better and more useful than the reflection in one's own mirror, during the period of national identification of the peoples of Central Asia Islam is able to perform two very controversial functions:
• On the one hand, the cultural values of Islam, its traditions and its huge spiritual heritage greatly contribute not only to the historical evolution of our region, but also to the qualitative shaping of its new image.
• On the other hand. as an instrument in the political struggle for control and influence over the political mind of the masses, Islam is able to play the role of a banner under which forces are united that do not pursue definite program objectives, but are guided by only one goal - that is the struggle for power.
Thirdly, and probably most importantly, there are dramatic changes in the social, political and economic spheres.
The unavoidable losses caused by reforms during the transition period, the objective processes of differentiation within the population and natural distinctions of ownership level have forced part of the population to take the attitude of a Soviet-like mentality in calling for a return to utopia and illusory equality, and to the pseudo-struggle against luxury and excessiveness - a return in essence to the equally-leveled standards that make people flat and society uncolored - instead of applying and developing their own skills and knowledge in order to improve their well-being. In these circumstances ideas such as Wahhabism become deceptively attractive.
In periods of stagnation, crises and splits in society the popularity of ideas inherent in Wahhabism reveals itself in the advocacy of justice, in the demands for the strict observance of Islamic ethics, and in the rejection of luxury and greed. It is unfortunate that such slogans have received support and continue to spread in a number of areas of Central Asia in recent years.
Fourthly, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states constitute an integral part of the very, complicated and multi-dimensional Islamic world. It is a well-known fact that in the world many formal and informal movements exist which use Islam for their political purposes. Some of them promote the exclusiveness of Islam, show intolerance towards all other religions, and use Islam as a platform to defend narrow-minded national interests. Their intention to involve the newly independent states of Central Asia as their political supporters and allies and exercise influence upon them is typical of their ideological purposes, which are manifested in well-defined action.
The above reasons for the growth in strength of the Islamic factor are absolutely essential for an understanding of the growth of religious activity in Uzbekistan.
Today in the Republic there are 15 confessional communities. some of which are non-traditional for Uzbekistan. The secular state attitude towards them is guided by the following principles:
• respect for the religious feelings of believers;
• recognition that religious convictions are the private practice of citizens or their communities;
• guarantee of equal rights and prohibition of persecution both of citizens professing religions and those who do not profess;
• need for dialogue with different religious associations to utilize their possibilities for the promotion of spiritual revival and universal moral values;
• recognition of the inadmissibility of using religion for destructive purposes.
This final principle corresponds to Article 18 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which upholds the right of every human being to freedom of thought and of faith, and adds that: 'Freedorn to profess a faith or believe may be limited pursuant to the provisions of the Law to provide social security and safety, public order, health, and to protect the moral and major rights and freedoms of other people.'
The above quotation quite clearly separates religion as a part of spirituality and culture from an attempt `to play- the religious card' for certain political aims.
We support the idea that religion should accomplish its role in introducing the highest spiritual, moral and ethical values, and in forming a part of the historical and cultural heritage among the population. And we will never allow religious slogans to be put on the banner in the struggle for power - a pretext for intervention in politics, economy and legislation - because in this we see a serious potential threat to the stability and security of our state.
How is the threat of Islamic fundamentalism manifested in Uzbekistan?
1. In attempts to disseminate fundamentalism to undermine the confidence of faithful Muslims in the reforming state, and to destroy the stability and national, civic and interethnic harmony that are fundamental pre-conditions of transformations for the better. Islamists are aiming to discredit democracy, the secular state, and a multi-national and multi-confessional society.
2. In the clear-cut notion that those, particularly our youth, who follow the populist, attractive, but entirely hollow and baseless slogans of the fundamentalists about justice will turn out to be hostages of the will of others, which in the end will direct not only their brains, but also their destiny. The subordination to such authority may result in personal tragedy. The most severe consequences are personal servility, constraint, slavery of an individual, complete limitation of freedom - with which our movement forward progress is impossible.
3. In provoking, among social groups and regions of the population, confrontation based on `true' and `false' devotional principles of religiousness. These sorts of activities led to the split of the nation in Algeria and Afghanistan.
4. In the situation of the civil war on the southern borders of Uzbekistan and in neighboring countries which is reproducing new generations of terrorists, armed militants who consider themselves to be true Muslims, fighters for faith, and those who are eager to impose their monstrous ideas on our people.
5. In creating a repulsive image of Uzbekistan among both Muslim and non-Muslim states, to whom we are presented either as antireligious atheists or as hidden supporters of state Islamization.
6. In shaping a global confrontation between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations. This has a most negative impact on our integrational processes within the world community and preserves the backwardness of the newly independent states. And, what is worse, people's expectation of 'civilization clashes' is based on religious principles.
7. In exerting influence on the mass mind, the concept of religion being presented as a universal means to solve all economic, political and international problems and contradictions.
Recently, there were foreign press reports that the Uzbekistan leadership does not believe in the threat of fundamentalism but uses it to
frighten the West and pursue particular goals.
Among some Western analysts and Islamic scholars it has become increasingly popular to treat fundamentalism as something not harmful to the world community, as something primarily directed against the fundamentalists' 'own' states. Supposedly, the Islamists would be better prepared for a dialogue with the world community if they destroyed and rebuilt their states according to their own models. Such experts go into raptures that a high proportion of fundamentalists have received higher technical or medical education in European and American universities. Do these people fully comprehend the real situation in the Muslim East, repeatedly subject to disintegration, discord and humiliation?
Not sharing such views, I judge it necessary to focus on another side of the problem.
When reflecting on the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, we are constantly compelled to look not only at its internal Islamic causes, but also at the factors which provoke and stimulate it. These factors are well known: colonialism and neo-colonialism, great-power chauvinism and anti-Muslim diktat in international relationships, the 'divide and rule' policy. Economic discrimination, arrogance and an unwillingness fully to understand the advantages of another culture, another civilization which in our country has the centuries old roots of an Islamic civilization, constitute a part of the thinking of the West about the East.
However, attempts to use the idea of the exclusiveness of the Islamic world to steer it towards solidarity with other powers of the modern world in order to establish a balance of power with the USA and Western Europe are also hopeless. Such variants have already been tried in the 1950s-80s. Is there any need to carry them over to the twenty-first century?
At the same time representatives of the developed countries should understand the painful character of the present breakdown of the traditional social relations, way of life and world outlook that are so valuable for Muslims. It would be fatal for the history of the twenty-first century if Islam and the states of Islamic culture were to be represented as a new `empire of evil' and an overall zone of danger.
It is however gratifying to learn that progressively minded personalities of the West highly appreciate Islam's contribution to
the flourishing of both their own and world civilization, and consider that it is high time to pay back the debts, and help development in a spiritual community where almost one billion people live.
Influential, authoritative and prestigious world forces, who stand against religious fundamentalism of any form, understand the role and importance of Uzbekistan in this struggle for normal, peaceful and mutually beneficial conditions, for the coexistence of different cultures and civilizations. They understand and support our country on its own path to reforms.
This should be remembered and appreciated by our citizens, and especially by our youth: remembering and understanding their responsibility to our state and to the world community.

(From "Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century", Curzon Press, 1997, pp. 19-28⁾