Central Asia’s five stans
中亚“五斯坦”

Nations without a cause
游魂般的国度

Sep 24th 2009
From The Economist print edition

THE Central Asian “stans”, as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are known by the Western diplomats and oilmen who frequent them, conjure images of megalomaniac rulers, exotic nomads and mineral riches beyond compare. There is some truth in the caricature, as Dilip Hiro makes clear in this new study (which also includes sections on Turkey and Iran), but it is not the whole truth. In addition there is the overwhelming influence of foreign ideologies—Islamism, socialism and, most recently, capitalism—and their promoters. The heirs to Genghis Khan they may be, but ever since the decline of the silk route in the 16th century, the five nations that lie in a vast swathe between China and the Caspian have been at the receiving end of foreign trouble. And it is Russia’s shadow that has fallen longest, and most balefully.

“中亚五斯坦”是什么？（提示：是个地名。——译者）…… 经常深入该地的西方外交官和石油工人都会知道答案。其实就是中亚的五个“XX斯坦”国：乌兹别克斯坦，土库曼斯坦，哈萨克斯坦，吉尔吉斯斯坦，塔吉克斯坦。提到这片土地，人们眼前会浮现下面的图景：自我膨胀的独裁者，极富异国情调的游牧生活，永远也挖不完的金山和银山…… 是文学性的夸张吗？其实还是蛮有事实依据的，迪利普·希罗在他的新（学术）书中就为这些描述（书中描述的区域一直延伸到土耳其和伊朗的部分地区）找到了现实的对应。但是现实并非如此单一，这片土地上还深深沟刻着外来意识形态及其传播者留下的印记（先是伊斯兰教，然后是社会主义，接着是眼下的资本主义）。这里的人们虽然继承了成吉思汗的血脉，却从16世纪丝绸之路衰落之时起（当时他们占据着从中国一直延伸到黑海的广阔区域）一直受到外族的侵扰。在这些来自异族的阴影中，俄罗斯民族对其影响时间最长，且带来的灾难最深重。

Central Asia was subjugated over the 18th and 19th centuries: it furnished tsarist Lebensraum, cotton and a buffer against the British. After the Bolshevik revolution, Lenin urged the “Muslim toilers” of the east to “organise your national life freely and without hindrance.” But things turned out differently. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, and the five republics, themselves Soviet inventions, achieved independence, they had been shaped by Communist planning and Russian assaults on their local cultures (mostly a hybrid of Islam and steppe shamanism).

中亚地区在18，19世纪一直被沙俄所统治，是沙皇实现其领土野心的重要棋子，还是沙俄的棉花供应地，还作为沙俄与英国对抗的缓冲地带。十月革命之后，列宁鼓励这些东部的“穆斯林劳工放开手脚地搞自治”，但结果却是另一番景象。苏联解体的时候，这五个共和制国家已被苏共的计划经济模式改造了。国家虽然独立了，本土文化（多数人信奉的是一种兼有伊斯兰教和草原萨满的混合宗教）却已被俄罗斯人大幅破坏。

When former Communists took control of the newly independent republics, they found themselves grappling with existential crises. One Uzbek teacher told Mr Hiro that her colleagues had grown up “citing Lenin every five minutes. Now they have lost the very centre of their thinking. They don’t know how to fill that big hole.”

新共和国独立后，原（苏）共产党员接手了政权（以乌兹别克斯坦为例，苏联解体后，当地共产党改组为人民民主党，继续执政。——译者），却发现自己（面对这种新体制）无所适从，必须要努力去应对各种“存在危机”。一个乌国的老师告诉希罗，他们这些人都是背着《列宁语录》长大的，“每5分钟就要引用一次列宁说过的话。现在，思想的拐杖没了，不知怎样才能弥补这个大坑洞。”

The story of this endeavour is the subject of Mr Hiro’s book. The favoured political model, authoritarian state capitalism, has not worked and the efforts of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to exploit hydrocarbons have been slowed by corruption.

希罗书里的故事很多都体现了上面这种“挣扎与被动”。比如，“威权统治下的国家资本主义”这种政治模式虽被看好，却并不好使。哈萨克斯坦和土库曼斯坦虽努力要开发碳氢能源，却被腐败问题拖慢了步伐。

Islam Karimov, the veteran leader of Uzbekistan, the most populous of the five, has kept his country secular and relatively stable at the cost of shocking human-rights violations. The attacks on America in September 2001 were timely for the region’s strongmen. Uzbekistan provided airbases and help in extraordinary renditions, in return for which America turned a blind eye to atrocities and increased its military and economic aid. This, too, was the pattern in other republics which also have land borders with Afghanistan. Since then, however, some of the stans have been wooed back into Russia’s embrace.

乌兹别克斯坦是五个“斯坦”中人口最多的一个，老总统（指任期时间长 ——译者）伊斯兰·卡里莫夫一直在该国实行世俗化统治，国内局势较为稳定，但却是通过残酷践踏人权换来的（乌国限制人民宗教自由，在镇压各种宗教团体的过程中频繁使用暴力，死伤众多。——译者）。2001年9月美国遭受的那场恐怖袭击给该地区的独裁者们带来了千载良机。乌兹别克斯坦为美国提供了空军基地，且协助美国进行“非常规引渡”（即在海外某国秘密逮捕嫌疑人并把他们引渡至与美国合作的第三国实施审讯 ——译者），换来的是美国对于乌政府暴行的视而不见，除此之外，还增加了对乌军事和经济上的援助。这种互惠模式也是其它与阿富汗接壤的共和制国家的通路。但也是从那时起，另外某几个“斯坦”国却被吸引投入了俄罗斯的怀抱中。

For a region that came to nationalism relatively late—until recently, millions of Central Asians defined themselves primarily as Muslims—ethnic conflict has been widespread. One reason is the proliferation of manufactured nationalisms. From Tajikistan’s President Imomali Rakhmonov, with his celebration of Tajikistan’s Aryan, pre-Islamic past, to Uzbekistan’s adoption of Tamerlane as the nation’s founder (even though he was not an Uzbek), these efforts have proved divisive.

对于一个相对较晚才意识到民族主义危害的地区——直到最近，仍有百万计的中亚人把自己首先定义为穆斯林——种族冲突在这里一直以来都很普遍。其中一个原因就是民族主义的蔓延，而这些所谓的民族渊源其实都是人为强加的。从塔吉克斯坦总统埃莫马利·拉克莫诺夫举行庆祝活动，纪念（伊斯兰教入主该地之前的）雅利安文明，到乌兹别克斯坦将帖木儿作为建国之父（尽管帖木儿不是乌兹别克人），种种作法都为后来分裂事件的发生埋下了种子。

In the case of Turkmenistan, the search became a consuming malaise. In 2000 its late president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who liked to call himself “Father of the Turkmens”, changed the names of the months, calling April after his mother. He also replaced cinemas with puppet theatres, which apparently are more authentically Turkmen. Niyazov attached such importance to his own epic account of the Turkmen nation that questions on the text appeared in the national driving test.

土库曼斯坦则是另一种情形，该国的作法已发展成痨病般的慢疾，一步步蚕食着这个国家的元气。喜欢称自己为“土库曼之父”的已故总统萨帕尔穆拉特·尼亚佐夫在2000年更改了12个月份的名称，将四月换成了自己母亲的名字。他还把国内的电影院都拆掉，换上了木偶剧场，因为木偶剧比电影看起来更“土库曼”。在土国全国驾照考试的试卷上，还出现了有关土库曼民族史的试题，题目出自由尼亚佐夫亲自撰写的土库曼民族史诗。这么做是为了突出此书和此段历史的重要性。

Readers acquainted with Mr Hiro’s prolific writing about Asia and the Islamic world will be unsurprised to learn that “Inside Central Asia” is a conscientious guide to the region, full of dependable history-telling and analysis. But it does perhaps lack a little gusto.

希罗写了大量关于亚洲和伊斯兰世界的著作。这本《深入中亚》同样是一本用心之作——可靠的史料，令人信服的分析——是了解该地区的很好的入门书。曾经读过他此类书的读者对这样评价该不会感到意外。本书尽管优点众多，但是可能稍微少了一点阅读的趣味性。