by MATTEO TACCONI
Take the nearby war in Afghanistan and borders that are not exactly watertight, take poor living conditions, a precarious economy, governments that are somewhat kleptomaniac and grab everything (oil and methane gas) giving nothing in exchange, and take the absence of a constitutional state. Then take a religion such as Islam, which was severely repressed in the days of the Soviet Union. The mix of all these ingredients – identity, frustration, poverty and anger – could be explosive and result in extremism, facilitating the penetration of “Talibanism.” To tell the truth it seems that this has already happened. For some time now analysts have been reporting that the Afghan winds have started to blow over Central Asia’s former Soviet Republics, where Islamic radicalism, characterised by elements of armed struggle, is no longer just a phantom, but something that is tangible and real, especially in Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In the first of these three countries the Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party), a group banned by local authorities, inspired to a philosophy involving the reintroduction of shari ‘a, has allegedly – according to recent news reports– abandoned the objective of pursuing its objective in a peaceful manner and has embraced the military option.
Reset Doc for more