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Sarah Kendzior and Noah Tucker
94
scribe the sexual violence in terms that emphasize
inhuman brutality, citing gang-rapes of young chil-
dren and virgin girls, frequently with the humiliating
detail (sometimes symbolically, sometimes literally)
of their fathers being forced to watch.
38
The graphic nature of the content provoked a
strong reaction in the community. Many expressed
feelings of horror, shock, and profound helplessness
in the face of what they called “an inhuman savage-
ry.”
39
Discussants gave their own accounts of elderly
men and women being thrown into flaming homes
to burn to death, of attackers cutting fetuses out of
the wombs of pregnant women, of relatives finding
the bodies of their loved ones partially eaten by stray
dogs, and of women’s bodies found with their breasts
cut off.
40
Though these most anecdotes are not usual-
ly accompanied with documentary evidence and may
be apocryphal, a substantial amount of documentary
material of similar deadly violence gives weight to
these stories.
The attacks are interpreted as a direct assault on
the survival of Uzbek communities and Uzbek cul-
ture. Discussants emphasized the murder of com-
munity elders and pregnant women, the physical de-
struction of Uzbek neighborhoods and photographic
evidence of the murder of some entire families to
make this clear.
41
They believe the attacks were direct-
ed against the values that Uzbeks hold most sacred
and that exemplify their culture and community:
protection of unmarried women, conservative sexual
mores, respect for elders, the importance of the home
as the center of family life, the reproduction of family
and culture, Islam, and the neighborhood (mahalla)
as a center of mutual ties and obligations that pro-
tects Uzbek culture in a country where Uzbeks are a
minority.
42
In their online commentary, Uzbek authors
extend the fire imagery to describe the scale of the
destruction and discrimination against Uzbeks in
Kyrgyzstan. In contrast to the way the sudden out-
burst of violence is portrayed in international media
and commentary—as an explosive event that inflicts
a great deal of dam age quickly but then fades away—
the Uzbek narrative characterizes the violence not as
an explosion but as a conflagration.
Saidjahon Ravoniy, an Uzbek poet and activist
from Andijon, was one of several commentators who
compared the fire in Osh to the Russian forest fires
that burned through much of that summer. Ravoniy
laments that while everyone could see the massive
destruction in Russia, few understood the extent of
the fires that burned in Kyrgyzstan, and the world
seemed more upset over snakes and insects burning
in Russian forests than the human beings who were
consumed, and continued to be consumed, in the
Kyrgyzstan persecution.
43
38 See “O’zbekligim ayb bo’ldimengabugun,” Adoiat, July 2, 2010, http://www.adolat.com/?p=1321&lang=uz; “Zo’rlanganlar hikoya qiladi,”
O’zbekFojea, July 27, 2010, http://uzbektra-gedy.com/uz/?p=134; see websites Musulman O’zbekistan and Legendy i istorii Vostoka; U. Awob
(Muniyb), “Musibatva Munosabat: Didagiryon Dardnoma,” Yangi Dunyo, August 8, 2010, http://yangi-dunyo.com/?p=13851; A. Taksanov, “Ya
etogo ne proshchyu i ne zabudu,” June 21, 2010, http://alisherl966.1ivejo- urnal.com/127664.html (Alisher Taksanov is an influential academic, lit-
erary critic, and writer from Tashkent who publishes commentary on Uzbek current events from exile in Europe); Behzod “Qirg’iziston Janubidagi
Qonli Voqealar Qiyosi Tahlili: 1990 va 2010,” Kundalik Bitiklarim, http://kundalik.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/qirgiziston-janubidagi-qonli-vo-
qealar-qiyosiy-tahlili-1990-va-2010-yillar/#more-849 (Kundalik Bitiklarim is a private, independent website published in the U.S.).
39 The word probably most commonly used in Uzbek to describe “violence” that took place is vahshiylik, which is best rendered in English as savagery
or butchery, connoting an animal or barbaric kind of violence. The attackers are frequently described as vahshiylar, that is, savages or butchers (a
person who com mits vahshiylik). Russian and English texts about the violence, even when written by Uzbek respondents, tend to be more formal
and less evocative, and use analytical terms that are more common to the language of human rights or the international community (reznya, mas-
sacre, or nasilie, violence).
40 S. Hakimov, “Oshdan Maqtub: Bir Fojea Tarixi,” Yangi Dunyo, November 17, 2010, http://yangidunyo.com/?p =15837.
41 See “Painkiller,” “Letters to the Editor,” “Expertnaya rabochaya gruppa,” and “Oshskaia gar’,” Yangi Dunyo, August 16, 2010, http://yangidun-
yo.com/?p=14098; “Photos,” Uzbek Tragedy, July 26, 2010, http://uzbektragedy.com/?page_id=1312; “Foto bezparyadkov v Oshe,” Musulman
O’zbekistan, no date, http://www.muslimuzbekistan.com/ru/ special/photofacts/osh2010.php; B. Tashmukhamedov, “Poroki kirgizskoy gosudarst-
vennosti,” Yangi Dunyo, September 11, 2010, http:// yangidunyo.com/?p=14744; “Abdullo Toshkandi,” Islam Ovozi; O. Q. Sobitxon O’g’li “O’zbeklar
referedumga qatnashishlari kerakmi, yo’qmi?,” Islam Ovozi, June 26, 2010, http://www. islomovozi.com/?p=665.
42 These include things like religion (dialogues often accuse Kyrgyz collaborators of betraying their religion and sometimes include salient but
likely apocryphal or symbolic de tails like attackers throwing Qur’ans into the toilet), the protection and seclusion of girls and unmarried
women, the boundaries and tight-knit community of the mahallas (traditional Uzbek neighborhoods that have inbuilt institutions of self-gov-
ernance and community obligations), cultivation of the land (in contrast to nomadic traditions of their neighbors), an emphasis on family
honor, and religious brotherhood across ethnicity. None of these traits are necessarily unique to Uzbeks in an objective sense, but family values
especially are given a great degree of stress in the se dialogues, and discussants are especially upset by their communities being scattered and
families separated.
43 Saidjahon Ravoniy; Yangi Dunyo.
Digital Memory and a ‘Massacre’: Uzbek Identity in the Age of Social Media
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