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The Religious, The Secular and The Esoteric in Bishkek1

Maria Elisabeth Louw, PhD in Anthropology and Ethnography,

Aarhus University, Denmark

Visiting Research Fellow, Social Research Center,

American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

A Disenchanted city?

Doing anthropological research on religion in Bishkek can be a bit discouraging. During what has,

so far, been around six months of fieldwork there I have often been met with reactions signalling

surprise, indifference and discomfort and comments hinting that I was in the wrong place. As one

man said, after lifting his eyebrows in surprise and clearing his throat, as if wanting to make sure

that I would get his point: “You need to understand that we have never been religious.”

During my former fieldwork in Bukhara2 I was also regularly met with remarks, which seemed to

suggest that I was in the wrong place. There, people pointed out, the seventy Soviet years had made

people forget about their Musulmonchilik, ‘Muslimness’, and as a researcher interested in Islam I

would be better off doing my fieldwork somewhere else. However, whereas the religion lost in

Bukhara was surrounded by a profound sense of nostalgia, which seemed to reflect people’s

feelings of dislocation in post-Soviet space, most people in Bishkek seem quite content with the

idea that they ‘have never been religious3’. Talking with people there about their religion, the first

thing they will often tell you is that Islam has never had such a strong hold on Kyrgyz people, that

they are only superficially Islamized, because Islam came to them relatively late, and because the

Kyrgyz were traditionally nomads – as if Islam needed a place to settle in order to take place in

peoples’ hearts and minds.

1 This paper was presented at the panel “Challenging Interpretations of Islam in Central Asia” at the eighth annual conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Seattle October 18-21, 2007 2 Louw 2007 3 I use the concept of ‘religion’ as a translation of the Russian term религия and the Kyrgyz term дин, and the term ‘religious’ as a translation of the Kyrgyz terms динчил and динге берилген and the Russian term религиозный.

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Bishkek and its inhabitants have often been described as thoroughly secularized. “When you walk

in the street of the capital,” writes Michel Gardaz, for example, in a report named “In Search of

Islam in Kyrgyzstan”4, “you feel only the cold breeze of ‘Scientific Atheism’ blowing in your face.”

People in Bishkek may also refer to the urban landscape to support their arguments that people there

are not ‘religious’, asking you to look around: Does this look like a ‘religious’ city? Indeed, at a

first gaze Bishkek hardly seems the kind of city you would settle in in order to study Islam.

Whereas the numerous ancient mosques, madrasas and shrines in Bukhara may trigger images of a

time when life was characterised by ‘Muslimness’, stereotypes of how ‘religion’ looks like are

hardly triggered by Bishkek’s urban landscape: Soviet urban planning with post-independence

twists in the shape of new business-centres, shopping-malls and casinos.

People may also draw your attention to the tempo of city-life, arguing that people there have too

much to do, too much to think of, and too little time to do so. Modern urban nomads – be it elites

rushing from place to place in search of the next business deal, cell phone in hand, or the less well-

off struggling along to provide for their families – do not have much time and space for religion in

their lives.

Others may be attentive to what they perceive as signs that Bishkek is indeed becoming more

‘religious’ or ‘Islamic’: A politician or prominent state employee making reference to Islam in

public speeches, the meeting with a davatchi5; the occasional sight of a veiled woman, people

selling ‘religious’ literature in the street, or perhaps of roads being blocked by people attending the

Friday prayer. Such signs that ‘religion’ is invading the public sphere are regarded with ambivalent

feelings by many. They might find that a certain amount of ‘religion’ is desirable as it counters

tendencies to moral decay and ‘westernization’ or ‘russification’. However, “even honey may

become bitter if there is too much of it,” as a woman expressed it, and many people in Bishkek

display a profound discomfort with ‘religion’ and with people who have begun to embrace, and

publicly display, a ‘religious’ identity.

The social life of stereotypes

4 Gardaz 1999: 276 5 I.e. a person who calls other people to Islam

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Research on Islam in Central Asia has been haunted by stereotypes and essentialisms. The tendency

was perhaps most notable back in Soviet times6. But also in contemporary research there is a

stubborn tendency to postulate that Central Asian peoples’ Muslim identity is somewhat superficial;

that knowledge about Islam has been lost during the Soviet years7, and that it, in the case of the

region’s former nomadic populations, was always shallow anyway8. Such approaches ex- or

implicitly compare how Islam is understood and practiced in Central Asia with some kind of

idealtypical ‘real’ or ‘pure’ Islam – as if defining ‘real’ Islam was unproblematic9.

Deconstructing stereotypes and essentialisms is fundamental to the anthropological endeavour, and

so is the effort to bring out the complexity of meaning as lived ‘on the ground’; among the people

we are studying. In this case it means bracketing questions concerning the status of peoples’

practices and beliefs relative to Islamic orthodoxy – the definition of which is by no means

unproblematic – and instead focus on the ways in which people actually live and experience them;

why some ideas about, and ways of practicing, Islam are more compelling, or meaningful, to them

than others.

Going to the field with the aim of deconstructing essentialisms and looking for the complexity of

meaning as lived ‘on the ground’ it can be a bit disheartening to meet people who describe

themselves in terms of the stereotypes one has set out to deconstruct. This is indeed what people in

Central Asia often do when asked by a researcher to describe their relationship with Islam: “I am

Muslim, but I am not real Muslim,” “The Kyrgyz people were nomads, and therefore we are not

real Muslims like the Uzbeks” or “We have never been religious” – Just to give a few examples of

statements I have recently heard in Bishkek. Statements which, interestingly, coexist with a strong

sense, among many people, that their lives are intimately connected with God, with Divine,

‘supernatural’ or ‘extrasensory’ interventions.

Stereotypes present meaning as unambiguous and semantically stable. In this way they disguise

what is in fact their own enormous capacity for multiple interpretations; their unstable semantics10.

Now starting to analyze the material from my fieldwork in Bishkek I am trying to probe into the

shifting semantics of what it means to people not to be ‘religious’, not to be ‘real’ Muslims; the

6 Cf. DeWeese 2002; Saroyan 1997 7 See for example Akiner 1997: 274; Gardaz 1999; Atkin 1995; Shahrani 1995. 8 See for example Kosmarskaya 1996, Akbarzadeh 2001 9 Cf. DeWeese 2002; Khalid 2007 10 Cf. Herzfeld 1992: 73

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local social life of the enlightenment concepts of the ‘religious’ and the ‘secular’ and related

concepts: How, when, and by whom are the categories of religion and its others defined? What

assumptions are presupposed in the acts that define them?11 What do statements about being

‘religious’ or not being ‘religious’ imply in the local context? Which experiential realities are

people referring to when they engage in such concepts? What is, for example, the experiential

‘other’ which people define themselves in opposition to when they say that they are not ‘religious’?

What don’t they include in the concept and why? Which meaning do they ascribe to experiences of

the Divine if such experiences are not meaningful in terms of ‘religion’?

Although it might be flawed from an anthropological viewpoint, the objectifying and essentialist

gaze that distinguishes between ‘real’ and not so ‘real’ Islam – deeming the Kyrgyz not so ‘real’ –

makes sense to many people in Bishkek and should therefore be taken seriously. While some people

there are beginning to embrace a ‘religious’ identity, being Muslim in a not very ‘religious’ way, or

not being ‘real’ Muslims, to many others, remains part of what distinguishes them from other

Muslims; be it Arabs, Uzbeks or people from the southern part of Kyrgyzstan who are generally

perceived as very ‘religious’, as being ‘real’ Muslims. And the fact that some people in Bishkek are

beginning to embrace a more ‘religious’ identity is seen as a symptom of the ills of society and

explained in quasi-sociological or –psychological terms.

Being very ‘religious’, to many people in Bishkek, is associated with excess; it feeds into other

images of excessive aspects of social change. As anthropologist Jon P. Mitchell has argued, social

and economic change – or more importantly perception of social and economic change – often

leads to a kind of moralising against excess that establishes a boundary within which people are

censured to remain, but in turn creates a proliferation of images of transgression, and of the

consequences of transgression12.

In Bishkek, as in other parts of the post-Soviet world, perceptions of radical social and economic

change has led to a proliferation of images of, on the one hand, excessive individualism and, on the

other hand, fanaticism: Excessive strategies for survival and for regaining a sense of agency and

identity which some people, it is believed, have resorted to as an answer to the social upheavals that

have characterised the time since independence. Extreme ways of being-in-the-world which are

surrounded by both fascination and repulsion: Repulsion because they are indeed excessive, anti- 11 Cf. Asad 2003: 201 12 Mitchell 2001

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social, and embody peoples’ anxieties about where society is heading. Fascination because people

nonetheless may recognise concerns which are their own in such excessive answers to the

predicaments of present-day life.

On the one hand there is the common image of the religious ‘fanatic’ – in many ways an imagined

cultural entity, known to most people by representations alone13. Although being branded as

religious ‘extremist’ is not as fatal as in Uzbekistan, in Kyrgyzstan the trope of the ‘extremist’

Muslim aiming at a violent overthrow of the secular state is also prominent in public debates about

which role ‘religion’ should play in society14. And the concern to distance oneself from ‘extremist’

or ‘fanatical’ ways of being ‘religious’ is a major one for many people. People commonly speak

about religious ‘fanatics’ as weak-minded persons who – similar to those who have found a refuge

in the bottle, or in drugs – have found a refuge in religious submission; in submission to an

authority that frees them from the burden of having to care about their own lives. People who have

become ‘very religious’ are often described as people who have withdrawn from the world, from

society, even from their families – in short, from the present – because of their inability to face and

handle everyday problems and find meaning in the ‘ideological vacuum’ that the breaking up of the

Soviet Union allegedly caused.

In addition to the image of the religious fanatic there has also been a proliferation of the image of

the religious hypocrite – an image which feeds into other images of cynicism and hypocrisy,

excessive individualism and consumerism: phenomena also perceived to be characteristic of post-

Soviet society, in particular urban society. ‘Being religious’ is by many described as some kind of

superficial lifestyle that has nothing to do with sincere belief but merely is chosen because it is

some kind of fashionable, signals the right things, much like the latest Armani-dress. As such,

religious lifestyle, in the opinion of many people is also often used as a cover of legally or morally

dubious acts. The tendencies of prominent, morally dubious, politicians and businessmen to make a

big show out of funding mosques or attending the Friday prayer has undoubtedly contributed to the

suspicion that people regard religious lifestyle with. It is striking how people, in interviews, jump

from talking about ‘religiousness’ to talking about what is perceived as other kinds of modern or

urban pretence and insincerity: Notably politicians whose words about democracy, social justice

and fight against corruption is perceived as just a cover of their pursuit of power and profit.

13 Cf. Lindquist 2002 on the New Russians as imagined cultural entities 14 Cf. McBrien 2006

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When the Divine takes place in the city

People in Bishkek might often define themselves as not very ‘religious’, but that has not necessarily

anything to do neither with their identity as Muslims, nor with their relationship with God. To be

religious or not has nothing to do with what God, or the Divine dimensions of existence, do in

peoples’ lives.

The Divine also finds its place in Bishkek’s urban landscape; among its casinos, bazaars, shopping

centres, bars and advertising billboards; and also Bishkek’s self-declared ‘non-religious’ population

find themselves surrounded by signs from God which help them drawing the contours of

themselves, the trajectories of their lives – especially, perhaps, in situations where their existence is

shaken.

Let me give an example.

Gulmira15 was a middle-aged woman who lived with her teenage daughter and her elderly mother in

an apartment in one of Bishkek’s suburbs. Like so many others of her generation, Gulmira had

experienced life in Bishkek deteriorating since the breaking up of the Soviet Union. When I met her

and asked her to tell about her city she conveyed a general impression of physical as well as moral

decay, insecurity and vulnerability: Frunze, the city of her youth, had been green and clean; it had

been a cultural, industrial and intellectual centre. Now the city had become dirty; the streets were

unkempt; the factories had been closed; the intellectuals had left for better jobs in Russia,

Kazakhstan or the West. Instead the city had been filled with labour migrants from the south and

with unemployed people who drowned their sense of hopelessness in drugs and alcohol. The rising

gap between the rich and the poor had split up society, and the concern to make money filled up the

minds of people and made them ruthless and unscrupulous. The former bastion of modernity16 had

become porous; the former symbol of hope and progress had become the site of day-to-day survival

strategies.

I asked Gulmira about the changes in the religious sphere. Having talked very passionately about

the changes Bishkek had undergone since independence she suddenly seemed demonstratively

uninterested and started giving very short answers. She did not know anything about religion, she

said. Although she was out of a family of moldos she conceived of herself as an atheist, and that

15 ‘Gulmira’ is a pseudonym. 16 Cf. Buchli & Alexander 2007

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was all there was to say about that. However, when I talked with her again a few days later,

returning to the subject, she said that it would not be correct to say that she did not believe in God.

Probably there existed some kind of ‘supernatural’ force in the world. She sometimes experienced

such a force herself; notably through her dreams.

Some years ago, Gulmira told me in order to give me an example, she worked as a chief accountant

in the military. As a chief accountant she had her own office. People would always comment on

how cosy it was. One night she had a dream: She came to her office in the morning and saw that

people were removing all the furniture from the room. The atmosphere had become different; dusty,

dirty and dark. The wallpaper was falling off the wall.

In her dream, the decay of the outside world had invaded what had until then been one of her safe

havens in the midst of post-Soviet chaos. And that haven, the office, became a different place to

her; an enchanted place – replete with omens that her life would fall apart in case she did nothing to

get away. In the morning, she said, she knew for sure that she had to leave the job and handed in her

resignation. The month after, she heard, the authorities discovered some ‘irregularities’ at her

former place of work. Her former colleagues were still in trouble, but her dream had made her leave

her job in time. Gulmira concluded that probably there had been some special forces at work in her

life.

In Bishkek, people frequently experience glimpses of the Divine or supernatural forces in what

might appear to the spectator as unimportant phenomena and make these glimpses significant as

basis for decision-making and reflections on their lives. Like Gulmira they might experience such

glimpses in images, voices and feelings experienced in dreams. Or they might experience it in

intuitions, sudden brain waves or impulses. In words they overhear in the street, which seem

somehow meant for them. In difficulties in doing something they have planned – travelling

somewhere, getting in touch with someone – which is perceived as a sign from God that they should

indeed not do it. In the feeling of hope against all odds. Or just in a general sense that God takes

part in their lives.

This brings us into the sphere of what one could call everyday ‘esotericism’ or ‘mysticism’. What

characterizes such ‘mystical’ or ‘esoteric’ experiences is the idea that they somehow defy

expression; that they need to be experienced to be properly understood. They are states of insights

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usually hardly reachable by rational understanding. They are transient, short. And the person

undergoing such experiences feels him- or herself as passively being held by a superior power. The

Divine takes place – shortly, but usually making a lasting impression on the person and sometimes

drawing the contours of a new self for him or her.

If the experiences as such are ineffable, the circumstances surrounding them are often remembered

in great detail, localizing the Divine, enchanting the most unlikely places in the city, creating sacred

landscapes which are usually highly personal: Gulmira’s office, for example, was not an enchanted

place to anyone but her, and perhaps the people whom she told about the dream, and who

recognised the dream’s authenticity and thus the moral grounding of an act which might have been

interpreted as the mere attempt to save one’s skin in time.

Hermeneutics of suspicion and hermeneutics of enchantment

The point that I wish to make is not that Bishkek is really enchanted, that people are really

religious, under a thin veneer of secularism. That would just be a subversion of the argument that

people are not ‘real’ Muslims and another confirmation that there are certain phenomena which are

really, essentially, religious, and other phenomena which are essentially secular.

I suggest that a potentially fruitful way of approaching religious life among Bishkek’s not so

‘religious’ population might be to focus on how people there variously enchant and disenchant their

surrounding world. How they sometimes engage with a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ in order to find

mundane concerns behind expressions of ‘religiousness’, and how they sometimes engage with

what one might term a ‘hermeneutics of enchantment’ that perceives signs of Divine forces in

apparently secular phenomena. How they create sacred, as well as secular, landscapes in the city;

how ideas about the ‘religious’, the ‘secular’ and the Divine become read and inscribed in the urban

landscape and the way life in the city is imagined, and how these processes are intimately connected

with city life as such; with peoples’ efforts to navigate it; with their hopes for, and fears about, the

directions society and their lives may take in the future.

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