Kazakhstan and Religion

They discovered long ago that when as politicians they called upon the people to react in a certain manner the reaction was likely to be limited. However, when those same demands are made in the name of the divine, those reactions become far more potent. The level of tolerance becomes narrower and the potential for violence much higher. When you add God to any argument, the issues become far more explosive, the Kazakh MFA's press service.

With that in mind you could say there are two types of countries that have turned to religion for reasons other than religion per se. There are those countries that are using religion as described above in order to achieve political gains and then there are countries like Kazakhstan, secular nations where religion is respected, tolerated but never imposed. Kazakhstan, for example, is quite capable of maintaining its Muslim heritage, all the while remaining secular and keeping the church and state (or in this case mosque and state) quite separate.

At the same time the Kazakhs have discovered just how important a role religion can play in society and therefore are devoting much time and energy in appeasing that explosive character that may at times accompany religion. Indeed, religion can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand it can rally the masses for good causes and on the other it can rally them for nefarious actions, as the world has witnessed time and again when religion is hijacked.

The current leadership in Astana, while at times gets bad press for what is often labeled a less than perfect score of conduct regarding press freedom and human rights records, has nevertheless played an all-important role in preventing the spread of politicized Islamism and the use of terror tactics by some of these groups.

This is an important contribution to the global war on terrorism for which Kazakhstan gets very little recognition, if any.

Kazakhstan has grasped the paramount importance of channeling religious energy in a positive manner rather than allowing it to free flow into a political pressure cooker from where it can explode, as it has in a number of countries.

During the year that I spent living in Kazakhstan as a correspondent for The Washington Times and later researching and writing my book about Islam in this Central Asian country I was fascinated by the country's attitude towards religion. Unlike many other predominantly Muslim nations, in Kazakhstan, Islam, like any other religion, is found where it should be: in the hearts of those who believe and not carried on their shoulders, as a chip.

Religion here on the steppes of Central Asia is a very personal and private matter, as religion should be. The people of Kazakhstan have the choice of a multitude of faiths they can adhere to, if they so wish to do. And if they choose no faith at all, there is no religious police who will descend upon them with sticks and misconstrued sayings from the Holy Koran. It is up to the individual to decide if he or she wants to follow a religion or not. If you choose to believe in a religion then you must know that all religions are about practicing love and celebrating life, not about death and evil. No God has ever wanted the death of a human being.

But what struck me most is the country's preoccupation with the issue of religion. Why devote so much time, energy, efforts and resources to events such as the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions that will take place in Astana at the end of May? The answer is in fact quite simple. The leadership in Kazakhstan has understood two things about religion. First is that you cannot eradicate it or even control it. Those lessons were learned during the decades of Soviet domination when the communists tried to do away with religion and failed. The second lesson was that while religion can be used to incite the masses, it can also be used to fight the extremists, as Kazakhstan is currently doing by organizing debates and symposiums on the various topics of religion and peace.

One of the key points I raise in my book Islam Without a Veil is the importance of reopening the gates of Ijtihad in order to allow Sunni Islam to move forward and to modernize in order to keep up with the ever-changing world. This is where the modernists will face their hardest challenge and opposition from the conservatives, the salafi and takfiri. These particular groups refuse all change in society, insisting on living in the same manner as the Prophet, yet they do not hesitate from turning to the Internet for propaganda and recruitment and collecting funds.

In organizing these religious conferences Kazakhstan hopes to be able to convince those who believe in religion that their future and that of their children lies more in practicing what the true religion calls for, peace and understanding rather than violence and hate, which in turn only produces more violence and more hate.

Peace can only become a reality once the antagonists in any given conflict develop more love for their children than the hate they harbor for their enemies.

This article by Claude Salhani was first published in The Astana Times on May 8, 2012.

The author is a political analyst and author of Islam Without A Veil: Kazakhstan's Path of Moderation, and a senior fellow at the Institute of World Affairs.