Abstract
This book represents a valuable contribution to the topic of postcolonial and decolonial debate in Kazakhstan. The book “Decolonization of Kazakhstan” analyzes issues of colonialism and decolonization. The author highlights that while some countries in the post-Soviet space have carried out decolonization, Kazakhstan has failed to go through this process. In this regard, the author constructs Kazakhstan as a nation being stranded in the colonial totalitarian past. The book consists of five chapters. In the first chapter, the author revisits and reexamines colonial and totalitarian past, laying a conceptual and theoretical ground for further discussions and debates around these issues. Throughout her book, Mustoyapova challenges and deconstructs deeply entrenched colonial myths, stereotypes, narratives, and discourses engineered during Imperial and Soviet periods.
The book draws attention to the failure of Kazakhstan to get rid of the legacies of colonial past. The author attributes the failure in decolonizing of Kazakhstan to the reluctance of the Soviet era political elites to achieve genuine freedom as well as to the rise of Russian neo-imperialism. Having monopolized power, these old political elites of Kazakhstan have steered the nation toward a different path over the past three decades, implementing state programs in the fields of culture, education, and science. Yet, the author draws attention to the fact that such top-down state-orchestrated initiatives have not been intended to address and overcome colonial and totalitarian legacies. In the book, the author defines the unwillingness of Kazakh political elites to address the nation’s colonial past as the avoidance approach. In the author’s view, the avoidance of Kazakh political elites to publicly acknowledge and deal with the legacies of colonial and totalitarian past has become the root cause of recurring tragic events in the country, state violence against ordinary citizens and opposition groups, draconian laws, punitive measures, systematic repressions, and persecutions. In this case, the author claims that such authoritarian behavior and attitudes exhibited by Kazakh political elites are rooted in the colonial Soviet past. Further, the author argues that these attitudes have been perpetuated and reproduced because of delayed decolonization, reluctance of jettisoning traditional colonial and totalitarian practices. She also stresses that the avoidance approach adopted by political elites of Kazakhstan and the rise of ultranationalist neocolonial ambitions of Russia have fueled the existing tensions in Kazakh society. Moreover, Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resurgence of Russian ethnic nationalism have shown that within Kazakh society, there are thousands of people who increasingly question the legitimacy of Kazakhstan as an independent state, favoring the restoration of the Soviet Union, Russian annexation, and recolonization of Kazakhstan.
The second chapter Delayed Decolonization focuses on discussing issues regarding colonization of Kazakhstan, how the colonizer (Russia/Soviet Union) and the colonized (Kazakhstan) belonged to different divergent types of civilizations, notably sedentary and nomadic (p. 17–18). It also stresses that discourses and narratives about nomads are still filled with deeply prejudiced Eurocentric and sedentary-centric perspectives. In this case, the author indicates that how Kazakhs are still seen and judged through the prism of such Eurocentric views of “us versus them.” Constructing Kazakhs as the “Other,” persistence of old dominant colonial Russian-centered myths, prejudices and stereotypes are observed in today’s Kazakhstan. This section of the book emphasizes that such negative trends persist because of unwillingness of Kazakh political elites to initiate and engage in discussions about decolonization. Besides, the attempts of Russia to keep its former colonies under its political, economic, and cultural domination have prompted the resurrection of old colonial narratives.
The third chapter Nomads: Experience of Reconstruction calls attention to how Russian colonization subjected the national identity of Kazakhs to violent transformations (p. 67–68). Four major characteristics define in the national identity of Kazakhs: the presence of nomadic culture, footprints of imperial-colonial and Soviet-totalitarian domination, and current postcolonial sentiments. From this perspective, the author points out that the colonial Russian perspectives deprived Kazakhs of their own history by writing and interpreting it from their viewpoint. Moreover, Soviet historiography monopolized the field of history, leading to the distortions and falsifications of Kazakh history (p. 75).
Throughout her book, particularly in the fourth chapter The Other Side of the Myth and the fifth chapter Overcoming the Consequences of Colonization, the author casts doubt on the validity of old colonial and totalitarian myths, stereotypes, and narratives about Kazakhs, systematically challenging discourses about exceptionality and benevolence of so-called “la mission civilisatrice” of European colonialism (p. 133). In her analysis, the author indicates the ways of overcoming the consequences of colonialism and totalitarianism resulting from radical changes in the traditional nomadic lifestyle and in the moral and mental health of Kazakhs (p. 231–232). In this regard, the Soviet regime not only deprived colonized peoples of their voices, but it also appropriated the voices of the “Other” and spoke on behalf of many nationalities (p. 276). In this sense, the author calls for the inclusion of voices of “Other” and examining, reassessing, and recreating the whole picture of the past and present cataclysmic events. From the author’s standpoint, this “other” is represented by the repressed, the colonized, the deported, the exploited, and other marginalized groups (p. 276–277). The author highlights the necessity to revisit the historical past as current issues in society mostly emanate from the legacies of tsarist and Soviet times, making the issues of identity, decolonization, postcolonial nationalism, and building a single civic nation relevant again (p. 2). Moreover, she calls attention to how Kazakhstan has become a captive to its colonial past, and the nation will be able to embark upon postcolonial era when the colonial and totalitarian past is addressed accordingly. Hence, she calls for exposing and debunking lies, and ideologies fabricated during tsarist and Soviet eras, raising awareness, developing critical decolonial thinking through public discussions and research.
The book points to the urgency of decolonization of Kazakhstan without which the country’s independence will remain problematic and questionable. Although the author indicates that decolonization in Kazakhstan has been mostly bottom-up, without top-down state-orchestrated initiatives and support, decolonizing efforts will remain futile and short-lived. Moreover, discussion about postcolonialism in Kazakhstan had been marginal and peripheral for a long time, yet the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent intensification of Russian influence in Kazakhstan encouraged and intensified public and academic debates on decolonization in the country. From this perspective, “Decolonization of Kazakhstan” is indeed instrumental in gaining a comprehensive and deep understanding of debates on postcolonialism and decolonization in the context of Kazakhstan. Therefore, I recommend the book to students and scholars interested in postcolonial and decolonial discussions in Kazakhstan.
