Abstract

Militants on the Steppes

This article presents information on the book "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia," by Ahmed Rashid. Again and again, Rashid rightly argues in "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" that the growing popular support for groups like the militant insurgency known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb ut-Tahrir are largely a response to the corrupt Uzbek President Islam Karimov government's inability to bring even a modicum of economic prosperity or democracy to Uzbekistan, the region's natural axis of power. However, when the republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan fell into independence following the collapse of Communism, they not only experienced a crisis of national identity, they also joined a more integrated world, where political and economic expectations for open and fair governance are arguably higher than they have ever been. All this, at a moment of religious reawakening across the region.