Return to the source: The republics of Central Asia and the Middle East

Raphael Israeli

Research output: Contribution to specialist publicationArticle

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

The present resurgence of the Muslim nations of Central Asia and the Caucasus, following the dismantling of the Soviet Union, has raised the question of the future course that these emerging states are likely to pursue. In other words, one wonders whether their long integration into Russian, and then Soviet, cultures had lent to them a European (though totalitarian) political culture; or rather, as soon as the yoke of their alien rulers is shaken off, they are likely to revert to their Islamic waterspring. Judging from the experience of other Islamic societies, who have undergone ‘revolutions’ of all sorts (e.g. the Arab World, and more recently Afghanistan), or a process of modernization under European aegis (e.g. Algeria, Sudan and much of the Arab world), the newly emerging Central Asian nations may very well be trekking their way back to the heart of the Islamic world. Is this process tenable and sustainable in the light (or obscurity) of the struggles in the Middle East between various trends of thought which have been attempting to sway these new nations into their respective orbits.

Original languageEnglish
Pages19-31
Number of pages13
Volume13
No1
Specialist publicationCentral Asian Survey
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 1994

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