Tokayev Should Wonder Why Modern Countrymen Of The Author Of Kazakhstan’s Hymn Say ‘[We] Alshyns Are Not Kazakhs’ – OpEd

On March 15, the third Kurultai (National Congress) took place in Atyrau under the chairmanship of the President of Kazakhstan. The Kazakh leader addressed the opening of the event. The speech lasted for quite a long. But honestly, there was nothing new in it. Yet the words, reflecting the status of the event, were spoken, listened to with attention, and welcomed with loud applauses. “First of all, it is imperative to strengthen the unity of our people” and “the unity of the people begins with the unity of its intelligentsia”, he said.

Let’s step back in time for a little bit to the very beginning of the modern national Kazakh state’s existence and find out how the reintroduction of the concept of Kurultai back into Kazakhstan’s first cultural life, and then into its political life, too, had been progressing. Already in the first year of existence of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in 1992, it was decided to hold the World Congress of Kazakhs in Almaty involving representatives of the Kazakh diaspora from 30 foreign countries and term it the 1st World Kurultai of Kazakhs. It was a purely ethnocultural event, and it had nothing to do with the political State-building process in Kazakhstan. The 2nd World Kurultai of Kazakhs took place 10 years later, in 2002, the 3d one in 2005, 4th and 5th ones in 2011 and 2017, respectively. Again, they all had no connection to the political processes in Kazakhstan.

In 2022, the current Kazakh President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, signed a Decree on the creation of the national Kurultai. Since, in the present case, it was about a political institution, this decision was regarded by many in Kazakhstan as a kind of step towards returning the ethnic Kazakh society, which, according to Seytkasym Auelbek, a Kazakh sociologist, in its fundamental characteristics, remains patriarchal and tribal, to its roots in the political sense of that word. Some of the Kazakhstani political experts were quite puzzled by Tokayev’s decision to revive the Kurultai as a tool and a structure of his nation’s internal politics. For, in normal Kazakh understanding, Kurultai was and still is seen as tribal representatives’ assemblies convened to determine the decisions on the nation’s most important domestic and foreign policy issues and assign individuals to leadership positions and titles. We repeat that the ethnic Kazakh society, according to Seytkasym Auelbek, a Kazakh sociologist, in its fundamental characteristics, remains patriarchal and tribal. Therefore, it can be assumed that the Kazakh leadership, who already said “a”, would probably have to say “b”, too, as the Russian proverb has it. Namely to revive the Kurultai notion as it was originally intended. This was the way the first Kazakh President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, wasn’t willing or prepared........

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