"I
came to the Central and Southwest Asian Studies program as a history major.
This has come to influence what I have studied while part of the program. When
I first came to college, I knew that I wanted to be a history major and focus
on the Middle East. For my first two years I pursued that passion, almost
exclusively. I had been introduced to the Central and Southwest Asian Studies program
my freshman year, when I read Taliban by
Ahmed Rashid and seen him lecture here at UM. I was interested in Central Asia
and the program, yet I felt that I did not have the time to pursue a minor in Central
and Southwest Asian studies. By the spring semester of the junior year, I had
exhausted not only the history classes offered in Middle East history, but also
ones that I found sufficiently intriguing.
It was almost by accident then that I turned to the Central and Southwest
Asian Studies program. Initially, I was going to take classes in the program to
fulfill my major requirements and continue my studies in Middle East, and
related, histories. But as I got more into the program, I realized that this
was a discipline that I wanted to peruse outside of the history department.
"Yet, my degree has always influenced
my work in the program, where I have taken a historical approach to my studies
and research. When I was a freshman, on the very first day, in my very first history
class, my professor, John Eglan, read us a quote by the French author, Gustave
Flaubert: “Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.” This
belief, the idea that history has everything to teach us about not only the
past, but also where we are now, and where we are headed, has guided my studies
and research throughout my academic career. It is with this same principle that
I have approached my work here in the program.
"My research in the program has, for
the most part, focused on post-Soviet Central Asia. In particular, I study the
effects of the Soviet occupation on Central Asian politics, society, and
religion and how this has lead to the rise of religious fundamentalism and
terrorism. I have done two major projects in this field. My first focused on
the failures of US development in Afghanistan between 1919 and 1956, and how
this lead to an increased Sovietization of Afghanistan, the Soviet occupation
of the 1980s, and the rise of militant religious fundamentalism, and
eventually, the Taliban. My other major project focused on the Soviet
occupation of Central Asia as a whole, and Uzbekistan in particular. In this
paper, I chronicled the rise of the fundamental Islamic group Hizb-ut Tahrir al-Islami
and how the repression of Islam under the Soviets, and continued by the Karimov
regime, as well as the lack of political and economic opportunity, have paved
the way for the rise of such fundamentalism. I have also done work on the
failure of development and the rise of opium production in Afghanistan as well
as the civil war in Tajikistan. Outside of the explicit purview of the Central
and Southwest Asian Studies program, I am currently working on two other projects.
One is on the relationship between Islamic political parties and the military
in Turkey and the other is on the CIA’s role in Tibet’s rebellion against China
in the 1950s and 1960s.
"Central Asia has become particularly
interesting to me because of it relevance in the world today, and our lack of
understanding of its culture, people, and history. Many experts and analysts
are saying that Central Asia is becoming the world’s newest center of
geo-politics. As a historian, I find this analysis misinformed and untrue.
Central Asia, since before recorded history, has always been the center of
human interaction, culture, and civilization. From the ancient Turkic tribes,
to the Mongols, Chinese, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Russians, Central Asia
has always been at the crossroads of history and culture. It is not without
precedent that Central Asia has always been contested between the greatest
world powers. Not only has it been a place of imperial struggles, Central Asia
has, since the earliest times, been the center of trade and the world economy.
The famed Silk Road, that connected China and India to the Middle East, Africa,
and Europe, ran through the heartland of Central Asia. Now, it is no longer
silk and spices that travel through Central Asia, but the world’s lifeblood:
oil, natural gas, and illegal drugs, as well as the West’s most recent
existential threat: Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Beside all this, the
cultural, artistic, scientific, and religious developments in Central Asia have
rivaled those of any other place in the world.
"The
western world has plunged itself into Central Asia, not understanding the
importance of the heritage and culture of the region. The republics and people
are, themselves, struggling to understand the role that they are to play in the
world, now that the Soviet Union is gone and the twenty-first century has dawned.
History would tell us that no nation, no power, nor no empire has ever been
able to truly conquer or exploit Central Asia – that they have been all doomed
to fail. It is foolish to think we will be any more successful if we do not come
to understand the storied history and vibrant culture of one of the greatest and
most important regions in the world."
I like to ride bikes. And triathlons. And ski. And travel.
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