foir_3880

FOI-R--3880--SE
however, has a phantom character. After posting a series of statements on the
Internet in 2011, it has not shown any activity.
ISLAMISM IN THE DOMINANT SECURITY DISCOURSES OF
CENTRAL ASIA
Today’s political elites in Central Asia generally see the radicalisation of Islam 1
as one of the most important challenges that can build up in their countries. Here,
the differences between the countries are discussed by analysing how official
doctrinal and strategy documents and statements by key figures relate to
Islamism. The threat assessments concerning Islamism in security discourses are
analysed in two dimensions. First, on the horizontal axis, is the threat assessed to
be Islamism’s influence by ideology or is it rather influence by violence (i.e. to
what degree is it a military threat) Second, on the vertical axis, is the threat
external or internal (See Figure 1.) 2
Uzbekistan
Internal
Influence by
ideology
Tajikistan
Kazakhstan
Influence by
violence
Kyrgyzstan
Turkmenistan
External
Figure 1. An illustration of the fragmentation of the Central Asian states’ assessments of
the challenge of Islamism.
Kazakhstan stresses the violence aspect of Islamism and treats it as primarily an
external, but also to some extent an internal threat. President Nursultan
Nazarbayev has linked religious extremism to terrorist activities and pointed to
both internal and external causes of their spread. He has emphasised that ‘the
dangers of religious extremism in Kazakhstan ... are seen primarily in a
destructive influence from the outside and can proceed from the neighbouring
regions of Eurasia, where it has become a very real danger and where elements
of extremism already exist’ (Nazarbayev, 2003: 101). A similar position is fixed
in the Military Doctrine of 2011 (Kazakhstan, 2011). Moreover, Kazakhstani
documents link the external aspects of the threat of Islamism with Afghanistan.
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