SECURITIZATION OF ISLAM IN THE FORMATION OF THE STATE SECURITY POLICY OF THE FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS OF CENTRAL ASIA: HISTORICAL ASPECT

Abstract

The article analyzes the peculiarities of the securitization of Islam during the formation of the security sector of public policy in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. It is shown that in the early 1990s, as a result of ethno-religious specifics and their geopolitical position, the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union were among the first in the post-Soviet space to face Islamist radicalism. Due to the fact that in 1917-1980 in the former USSR was destroyed almost all Muslim infrastructure, in the first half of the 1990s, the Islamic revival in the Muslim republics took place under the significant influence of foreign radical Islamists. The aim of the article is to study the peculiarities of the securitization of Islam during the formation (in the 1990s) of the security sector of public policy in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia for possible use in Ukrainian realities. The result was religious and political conflicts in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in which tens of thousands of Muslims took part, and there was a real opportunity for their transformation into civil wars. However, due to the rather successful use of the securitization policy by the state authorities, the local ruling elites managed to stop the development of events in the worst-case scenarios. From the beginning, measures were taken to prevent further intensification of conflicts, over time, the political activity of Islamists was channeled and brought into the non-political sphere. From this point of view, the practice of alternating securitization / desecuritization measures, which has been practiced for many years, is of considerable interest. Analysis of the current religious and political situation in Central Asia shows that the basic algorithms of the methods used in the 1990s can be effectively applied in other regions with a Muslim population (in case of aggravation of the religious and political situation, which can lead to mass actions of disobedience in more dangerous forms of socio-political and ethno-religious conflict).