There was a girl raped in some village in Kyrgyzstan.
This is not big news. Violence towards women, especially young women in traditional patriarchal societies, takes place every day all around the world. These are stories with variations, which give me creeps. The rape of a Russian four year old girl in a Kyrgyz village of Petrovka, and the rape and murder of her grandmother which took place later as a result of her attempt to bring an action against a 21 year old Kurdish young man --- this story is not an exclusion. But it received an exclusive attention of the local and international news media.
On 26th of April, the ayil okmotu (village gathering) ended up in a verbal and physical abuse. The Kyrgyz and Russian villagers demanded that the criminals, who happened to be ethnic Kurds in this case, got punished. And that was not only it: the Kyrgyz and Russian villagers demanded that Kurds leave the village. The Kurdish villagers with guns organized themselves and confronted the anti-Kurdish crowd. According to AkiPress.org, the militia major Aliev could not stop shootings: three people were wounded. The Kyrgyz and Russian villagers looted the Kurdish property. The MIA Vice-minister Isaev reported 6 autos were severely damaged, one of which was set on fire; the windows of 15 houses were broken, etc. Around 800 villagers participated in pogroms. 100 villagers were arrested. The next day, the participants of the Sunday pogrom organized an action on the strategic route Bishkek-Osh demanding from the militia to release the arrestees.
The bloodiest "inter-ethnic conflict" in Kyrgyzstan took place in 1989 in Osh, Ferghana Valley. In 2005, there happened another inter-ethnic conflict between the Kyrgyz villagers and Dungan diaspora of the Iskra village. The controversial story that took place in April 2009 was served by the local news media as another manifestation of the latent inter-ethnic conflicts. Most of the local press explains the violence in Petrovka: the rape of a four year old Russian girl by a Kurdish twenty one year old Kurd and then the murder of her Russian grandmother could not be tolerated by the Kyrgyz villagers --- these accidents provoked pogroms of the Kurdish houses and forcible exclusion of the Kurdish diaspora from Petrovka.
This oversimplification of the conflicts between the Kurdish, Kyrgyz and Russian villagers is outrageous! By storing the problem into the box labeled "inter-ethnic conflicts", we avoid answering the long-standing acute questions raised by the demonstrated intolerance time and time again.
To be continued.
Subproduct of Globalization
- Svetlana Makeyeva
- Dortmund, Germany
- Svetlana Makeyeva has been studying American studies in Kyrgyzstan, Germany and U.S.A. She obtained her B.A. from the American University-Central Asia (Bishkek, 2006), and M.A. from the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the Ruprecht-Karls-University (Heidelberg, 2007). In 2008, Svetlana joined the American Studies Department at the Dortmund University of Technology to work on her PhD dissertation titled "Digital Nomadism in the U.S.". This blog is dedicated to her work, and issues related to the academic/campus life. She also rants a lot about this and that, but, generally, she is a content person who can laugh at her own mistakes and beliefs.
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This is the most horrible thing that can happen to a girl. Incontrovertibly.
ReplyDeleteBut we -citizens in the western civilization- in our unbounded arrogance we carry all day long, discount such a case "happening in a country like Kyrgyzstan" as a very normal thing. We think, that such things use to just happen. In "a country like that". We are simply not interested
(you didn't even think, there was ANYthing in the news, did you?!
-> No newsworthiness. -> No interest. -> No event.
Sad but true.)
in what happens "over there".
We citizens in the European Union denounce the U.S. for not being interested in any other country. But what about us? Are we even better? I don't think so. First blame yourself, then all the others who do things wrong as well!
It's the stereotypes, stupid!
Isn't is equally horrible, a small child being raped in Central Asia as in an European Country??
Why doesn't ANYone want to know about it? Is there any hope for being heard, for causing a change without anyone's interest?
It's the same with Iran. There were people dying before. But it was Neda's picture, that went around the world. Neda caused interest. But what about all the other hundreds of citizens who died these days? No interest. Just one picture.
There was nothing in the news about the presidential election in Kyrgyzstan in July. Nothing about this small girl and her grandmother. Nothing about this villagers-revolt. And I guess in 1989 there was even nothing in the news as well.
Why? And what could be done against it?
How can we justify such an arrogance? It's about humanity, I guess.
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