Democracy Sprouts From Autocracy

Good news is hard to find in Afghanistan’s neighborhood this month. The exultation in Kabul following the Taliban’s fall has given way to profound insecurity across the country; political change has stalled in Iran; Pakistan is once again the victim of violence in Afghanistan and its own self-destructive politics; and some Central Asian politicians are questioning their relationships with the United States. These tremors are worrisome signs that U.S. diplomacy in the region is already overdue for some serious rethinking.

But the logic of diplomacy is not linear. Although the global war on terrorism appears to have anchored dictatorships across Central Asia, its secondary effects may turn out to be far more interesting. Counterintuitive though it may seem, stronger autocracies may be just the thing to make democracy advocates think about reform.

Consider Uzbekistan, a tidy authoritarian state whose longtime ruler, Islam Karimov, finessed his transformation from communist to capitalist--and pariah to partner--by seizing the anti-terrorism high ground last year to become Washington’s closest Central Asian ally.

Uzbekistan--the Silk Road’s most famous mileage--is an easy place to like and a hard place to understand. Its 25 million citizens, including at least 7,000 political prisoners, have treated their decade-long independence as an endurance contest. Rather than exploit economic and political opportunities, most have relied on the state to ease them through a relatively quiescent post-Soviet period. Despite its stability, however, Uzbek politics is a study in the encroachments of fear on public life. Most Uzbeks do not take their cues from the increasingly vital, if strident, political contests in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Instead, they have spent 10 years looking south, to their borders with Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and have seen little but civil war, terror and heartache.

Fearing the worst, Uzbeks have settled for less than the best. Karimov has ruled with an iron hand in a climate of constraint, mocking the feeble efforts of other post-communist rulers to share power, reform their economies and learn the rules of Western diplomacy. Instead, he has promoted his doctrine of state-led development--trickle-up economics, trickle-down social control--and Uzbeks have allowed him the luxury of manufactured social consensus. In return, Karimov has abused their rights, limited public debate, postponed popular political participation and eliminated the critical middle road that makes trafficking in politics possible.

What irony. The Uzbek inheritors of the Mongol and Timurid dynasties, whose monuments at Samarkand and Bokhara testify to brutal medieval tyrannies and astonishingly sophisticated cultures, describe themselves today as quintessentially “Eastern,” passive and risk-averse. Political parties have been costumes for Karimov’s one-man show, and local government a way to restrain opposition; newspapers are perpetual irritants to government; and nongovernmental organizations are either state-owned fictions or political factions on their way to jail.

That is, until now. Karimov volunteered for the U.S. war on terrorism and found himself laden with military equipment, base-leasing agreements and the new embrace of Washington. Like so much else that has happened since autumn 2001, this was considered U.S. diplomacy’s bitter pill: dance with dictators and live to fight another terrorist. A formal alliance between the U.S. and Uzbekistan initiated a tiny trade in diplomatic niceties. To facilitate an invitation to the U.S., Karimov registered one human rights group (but didn’t re-register dissident political parties); to pursue a fully fledged military relationship, he fired the government’s chief censor (but didn’t necessarily end censorship); in return for mounting a referendum to extend his rule, he allowed Uzbeks to talk about democracy.

And that’s where things get intriguing. When people talk about democracy, they often get the itch to do something about it, and some Uzbeks are doing just that. Parliamentary parties, uncomfortable with populist inventions like platforms and campaigns, still speak in empty, ponderous dialectic, but prodded by Karimov, they are slowly realizing that they’ll need plans for the 2004 elections. Government officials invoke Karimov’s words with every breath, but, during the past year, they have quickly learned the vocabulary of good governance and are now puzzling over its meaning. NGOs are receiving a bit more respect and, with the help of foreign interlocutors, have introduced young Uzbeks to public debate and the delights of political disagreement. The media are still harassed, but even proscribed political parties have unfettered Web sites.

Almost everyone who says that things have changed credits the United States and the U.S.-led anti-terrorism alliance--not by promoting democracy but by making Karimov feel more secure. This means that Uzbekistan is still Karimov’s, and he plans to keep it that way. He has loosened the reins of control, but just a little bit. He has given Uzbeks reason to believe that their lives may improve, but not reason to think that they can do better without him. And he has made it clear to everyone that Uzbekistan’s potential democracy relies on the continuing solidarity with the United States.

This is where Karimov wants the United States: responsible for Uzbekistan’s well-being but not in charge. Theoretically, this is what the U.S. also wants--as long as Uzbek and American interests coincide. The good news is that everyone, including Karimov, says he wants democracy. But what happens if Uzbek democrats want new leaders?

If political reform takes hold in Uzbekistan, expectations will rise and Uzbeks will find a revolution in the making. But saying yes to Uzbekistan may mean one day soon saying no to Karimov. That’s when the U.S. will rediscover that allies do not always remain friends. Most important, the U.S. will relearn that its alliances are made with countries and their citizens, not with individuals who hold power. Karimov is surely thinking about this--and so should we.