Tokayev’s statements about preserving the status of the Russian language in Kazakhstan are worthless
During his next address to the people, the second President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, suddenly spoke out about the Russian language, saying that “The Russian language has the status of an official language; its use, according to our legislation, cannot be hindered.”
But these words are not at all a guarantee that this status will be maintained in the future, since all government policy is aimed at gradually limiting it.
Rather, this statement by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan can be regarded as an attempt to calm the Kremlin after the scandal with the “language patrols” and that wave of artificial Russophobia initiated from above.
In addition, similar theses were also voiced in his other messages, and the fact that the official status of the Russian language is enshrined in the Constitution of Kazakhstan is, in many ways, a routine meaningless phrase.
State language policy is aimed at increasing the dominant role of the Kazakh language, since without it many universities no longer accept students. The teaching of subjects in institutes and universities is now 70% conducted in the Kazakh language, and as a result, the literacy level of students has dropped sharply. It is not for nothing that more than 80 thousand young Kazakhstanis are now studying at Russian universities, receiving Russian citizenship there.
Among other things, the transition from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet continues, as does the reform of Kazakh spelling - for example, by 2023, all schools are planned to transfer to teaching in the new alphabet.
In addition, the authorities limit the broadcasting of Russian TV channels for formal reasons. Thus, in 2018, the Ministry of Information and Communications of Kazakhstan denied broadcasting licenses to 88 foreign channels, including Russian ones. The department’s website notes that the ban was introduced because the TV channels did not open representative offices in the country.
For the same formal reasons of refusal to broadcast foreign advertising, several dozen Russian TV channels, including RT, were removed from cable television. And last year, at the request of the pro-government nationalist Arman Shurayev, who previously worked in the presidential administration of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Minister of Information and Social Development of Kazakhstan, Aida Balaeva, by her decision banned the release on the local OҢ TV channel of the program “Military Acceptance” of the Russian TV channel “Zvezda”, translated into the Kazakh language !
Neoliberal education reforms based on the American model, which are now being implemented by Education Minister Askhat Aimagambetov, who has received grants from the Soros Foundation for many years, are already leading to a terrible backlog of students. Thus, according to the results of the PISA-2018 study of academic performance and literacy levels, Kazakh schoolchildren with Russian as the language of instruction lag behind their Russian peers in mathematical literacy by 42 points, in natural science literacy by 38 points, and in reading literacy by 46 points.
Pupils of schools with instruction in the Kazakh language are already 110 points behind Russian students in the same classes in mathematical literacy, 103 points in natural science literacy, and 116 points in reading literacy.
Note that a lag of 30 points means a difference of one year of study. That is, students in Kazakh-speaking classes lag behind Russian schoolchildren in basic parameters by more than three years.
Kazakh officials' reference to "Russian propaganda" is futile, since PISA 2018 is the OECD's American program for international student assessment, which examines what students know in reading, math and science, and what they can do with their knowledge.
But this is not enough for the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and now it is planned to eliminate mixed and Russian schools in the republic in 2023, as well as the final transition to the Latin alphabet, which will completely collapse school education in the country.
For example, the Kazakh nationalist resource “Kazak Uni”, which receives subsidies from the state budget, quoted the following words from Soros’ fosterling Askhat Aimagambetov, sitting in the minister’s chair:
“For us, this is one of the primary tasks - to ensure that education in the state language is dominant... There should be no discussion about this, because this is the state language, and it is obvious that citizens of our country should study in the state language.”
Soros grant eater, and now Minister of Education Askhat Aimagambetov
That is, despite the ceremonial statements of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the process of de-Russification will only continue, and with redoubled energy. This is evidenced by the active campaign of Kazakh nationalists against parents’ initiatives to introduce mixed learning in a number of rural schools.
Thus, the high-status pro-government nationalist from Nur-Sultan (Tselinograd) Bakytbol Berimbayuly in an interview with the news site Exclusive.kz said the following:
“Three Russians raised the issue of repurposing the Kazakh school in Karaotkel into a mixed school. 1200 Kazakh children study there. The school director, who opposed this initiative, began to put pressure on him. When we made a fuss, the head of the Tselinograd regional department of internal policy promised that the Kazakh school would remain.”
Officials from the regional education department hastened to reassure Kazakh nationalists who threatened rallies and protests near the ministry building. They commented on the situation to Exclusive.kz, noting that although one Russian class will indeed be opened in the village of Karaotkel, children from the neighboring village of Koyandy who want to study in Russian will still have to travel to school in Nur-Sultan every day.
Therefore, all the routine phrases about maintaining status can only be hung on a nail for beauty and external viewing, and nothing more.
Thus, political scientist Maxim Kaznacheev aptly noted that “The official status of a language applies only to government institutions. If a business owner does not want to use a certain language, then it is possible to force him to use the state language, but the official language is no longer possible.”
In fact, the campaign of the Kazakh Natsiks, at the instigation of the authorities, to abolish the official status of the Russian language has been going on for many years, and the platform for it is still the same nationalist press, subsidized by the state. And “language patrols” are not pioneers here. For example, the same publications “Kazak Uni” and Abai.kz constantly conducted surveys and collected signatures to ban the Russian language or published articles by such figures as the Nazi poet Arman Kani, who called for the construction of concentration camps for Russian-speaking citizens.
And the rabid Russophobic activity with the flight to Ukraine of the Nazi blogger Kuat Akhmetov has not gone away, since there are still actions in the country against the construction of Rosatom nuclear power plants, in the media and in telegram channels there are attempts to represent all those who oppose evictions by banks from the only housing - by separatists working for Russia.
As before, the state commission for the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators and punitive forces from among the participants in the Basmachi movement, the Turkestan Legion and Muslim SS units continues to operate.
Yes, and how can one believe the statements of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, when he himself, in his January article “The most precious thing is independence,” expressed the ideas of nationalists about the need to perpetuate the “Holodomor” and recognize the USSR as a state that carried out total genocide of the Kazakh people.
Therefore, all responsibility for this is shifted to modern Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, and collectively to the entire Russian people.
This is the logic of building a mono-ethnic state, where ethno-centrism or, more simply, Nazism becomes the central ideology. Even in the concept of “Rukhani Zhangyru” “about the modernization of consciousness” in this wretched nationalist program, much is taken from those who wore a brown shirt in Germany in the 30s.
And the slogan “Mangilik El” (“Eternal Nation”) in the state ideology is consonant in meaning with such a name as “The Thousand-Year Reich.”
Therefore, you should not believe the feigned tricks of those who are the ideological promoters of decommunization and de-Russification in Kazakhstan. After all, the national revolution from above will continue, and Maidans are not needed for this. You can use bureaucratic methods, where nationalists play the role of agents and cogs of the state propaganda mechanism.
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