foir_3880

FOI-R--3880--SE
people’s ability to hear them, which pushes these groups into non-discursive
actions. The lack of a public policy debate forces groups and movements either
underground and/or onto the streets.
The insecurity dilemma and the security of silence dilemma are the most
important problems for the Central Asian countries. The structural features of the
discursive space of these countries make it likely that challenges from social
groups based on identities competing with the regimes’ – ethnic, religious,
kinship and ideological – will be subject to a securitisation process and,
simultaneously, be unappreciated (external) for the dominant discourse, that is,
they will be framed by the regimes primarily as a security issue rather than a
legitimate political challenge.
The non-discursive sphere of securitisation of Islamism is determined, first of all,
by the growth of unresolved internal problems in the countries of Central Asia,
such as poverty, unemployment, the harsh socio-economic stratification of
society, and corruption. The regimes lack effective strategies to address these
problems, which contributes to people seeking alternative, new, both political
and socio-economic as well as identification, models. The models offered by
Islam integrate social and religious factors and seem to be among the most
acceptable to people.
CONCLUSIONS
Accentuating the challenges from Islamism is a structural characteristic of the
dominant discourses of security in Central Asia originating in the early 1990s. At
the base of the securitisation of Islamism is a security discourse structure in
which the main securitising actor and the referent object are the current political
regime as represented by the government and state. The securitisation of
Islamism in Central Asia has less to do with national or state security than with
regime security. This, however, also creates a reverse process, shaping a
perception that the regime is the main threat to the state/national security.
Equally important are the governments’ attempts to use and apply political power
in all aspects of human life.
In the dominant government-sponsored discourse the challenge from Islamists is
seen primarily as internal destructive forces trying to undermine Muslims’
confidence in the state and to destabilise the situation. The basis of this
understanding of the challenge of Islamism is that all the Central Asian countries
are weak states, each with multiple centres of power competing for the dominant
position. As each of these centres seeks to improve its own security at others’
expense, insecurity spreads in the rest of the system – the insecurity dilemma –
while the dominant discourse pushes competing discursive practices away from
the discursive space – the ‘security as silence’ problem.
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