Mediating the Conflict in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan The Hegemonic Narrative and Anti-Hegemonic Challenges Accepted version of an article published in Central Asian Affairs: Lemon, Edward. " Mediating the Conflict in the Rasht Valley, Tajikistan", Central Asian Affairs 1, 2 (2014): 247-272. Edward Lemon Department of Politics, University of Exeter
[email protected] Abstract Between 2009 and 2011 Tajikistan experienced one of the worst bouts of political vio- lence since the end of the country’s civil war. The fighting was concentrated in the Rasht Valley, an area traditionally associated with opposition to the regime. As a result, the government attempted to fix the meaning of the conflict around the signifiers “international terrorism” and “radical Islam.” This framing directly reproduced the regime’s hegemony through legitimating the removal of opponents and contrasting the Tajik “self” with the terrorist “other.” The hegemonic narrative was incomplete and contained inconsistencies. As a result, anti- hegemonic actors attempted to under- mine its legitimacy. Although these critical articulations destabilized the narrative, due to their dispersed and divergent nature, it ultimately maintained its hegemonic position. Keywords Tajikistan – terrorism – Islam – conflict – framing On April 15, 2011, Tajik television displayed graphic images of militants killed by government forces during a special operation. The video contained images of illegal weapons caches, mountain hideouts, bomb-making books, and Islamist motifs. The narrator labeled the militants as “international terrorists” (bain- almilli terroriston). He stated that these men wanted to overthrow the government and enforce an Islamic state based on shari’a law in Tajikistan. Long-time government opponent Mullo Abdullo led the group.