TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The Aryan civilization is in the limelight in Tajikistan. The Tajiks are direct descendants of the famous prehistoric people, according to President Emomali Rakhmonov.
The term "Aryan," meaning "noble" in Sanskrit, was formerly used to mark the Indo-European race or language family or its Indo-Iranian subgroup, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia. The Aryans, nomadic tribes, migrated from southern Russia and Turkestan, a vast region including the central part of Xinjiang province in China, a strip of northern Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, during the second millennium B.C. Urban centers in the ancient region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, now part of Iraq, and cities in Asia Minor, a peninsula in Asiatic Turkey between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, fell to their warrior bands.
In the 1990s, Rakhmonov posited that the Tajiks were the original inhabitants of Central Asia and that the words "Tajik" and "Aryan" were synonymous. In late 2003, he declared 2006 the "Year of Aryan Civilization" in which to study and propagate the Aryans' contributions to world civilization.
"As to Rakhmonov's initiative, that is just an attempt to create a tradition," Eugeni Gilbo, a Russian sociologist, told United Press International. Modern Tajiks are devoid of tradition, he said.
Tajikistan raised the Aryan issue only as a question of the origin of nationalities and cultures, Viktor Dubovitsky, a Tajik scientist, said.
In his book, "The Tajiks in the Mirror of History: from the Aryans to the Samanids," Rakhmonov asked: "Have various Turkic nationalities and tribes that became owners of the territories of former ancient Bactria, Sogd and Khorezm (shared now between Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan) thousands of years later and are laying claim ... to the Aryans' historical and cultural heritage, anything in common with the Aryan nationalities of these areas?"
The language Tajiks speak belongs to the Indo-European family, while Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Uzbek belong to the Turkic family. Surviving Indo-European languages include English, Spanish, German, Greek, Russian, Persian and Hindu. About half the world's population speaks an Indo-European language.
Uzbek academician Edvard Rtveladze considers the decree on Aryan civilization a thoughtless act, he told UPI.
"The man in the street connects the word "Aryan" with fascism," he explained.
An Aryan in Nazi doctrine is a non-Jewish Caucasian, especially of Nordic stock, according to the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
Nazis traced those of German descent to Aryan forebears. They also incorporated the idealized notion of conquest pictured in the Vedic hymns, the literature of the Aryans dated at about 1000 B.C., into their literature. The Aryans invaded northwestern India in about 1500 B.C.
"A new conception of the history of Central Asia is being created -- the conception of ethnic exclusiveness," Rtveladze wrote in his article, "Historical Science and Pseudo-history of Central Asia."
The key features of the concept are the allegation that the most ancient state system was created by a nation to which an author belongs, the antiquity of this nation, an unreasonable assessment of the territory occupied by the nation in the past, and the unjustified exaltation of the nation while belittling others, he said.
Many people have started to undertake historical research because it appears easy. Moreover, they are bent on placing the past at the service of political arrogance, he said.
"Books written by leaders of states are the most dangerous because of their authors' status; in a way they become nations' bibles," he added.
Ethnic exclusiveness, a sense of belonging to a historical elite or a special people, is the essence of the theories of racial superiority, Aryan eminence, pan-Turkism and pan-Iranism, he said.
Tajikistan is a country slightly smaller than Wisconsin with a population of nearly 6.9 million. Tajiks comprise almost 65 percent. Ethnic Tajiks live also in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
Tajik academician Nugmon Negmatov introduced the concept of "historical Tajikistan" covering all Central Asia in his book, "The Tajik Phenomenon: Theory and History." The "historical Tajikistan" already existed in the third millennium B.C., he said.
"The consciousness of previously humble nationalities is rising, which can result in suppressing values common to all mankind," Bakhodir Musaev, an Uzbek sociologist, told UPI.
"Post-Soviet nationalism is a terrible thing," he said.
There is a possibility of creating an Aryan empire uniting the Islamic world, Gilbo said, with Tajiks, Persians, and Pashtuns at its core. The empire could even swallow up the Arab world, annexing politically and militarily weak countries such as Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen, he said.
Mountain peoples are said to be much more impetuous than Germans, for example. At the same time the aggressiveness of a state results from such factors as overpopulation and an economy in transition, which exist in today's Central Asia, he said.
Some challenge the assumption about a possible Aryan empire.
"Maybe it is a nostalgic view," Ulukbek Chinaliev, the Kyrgyz ambassador to Uzbekistan, said.
Kyrgyzstan is a mountain country as well as Tajikistan.
"(To dream of) the unification of various nations, even sharing a common language, common culture and a common religion, is not promising," Chinaliev said.
