Uzbekistan closes the door on ideas

Uzbekistan’s ban on the teaching of political science has earned its government a barrage of criticism from abroad, where it is already widely unpopular. The ability to study any subject is, after all, part of the fundamental right to acquire and pass on knowledge. Leaders of the landlocked Central Asian nation apparently don’t see it that way.

In attempting to explain why they have barred political science from university curricula, Uzbekistan’s education authorities referred to the subject as “non-scientific”, as well as a “duplication” of existing subjects, such as history, psychology and sociology. More tellingly, they regard the field as too heavily influenced by Western thinking and thus troublesome for Uzbekistan’s efforts at national development.

If this ill-informed action is new to the headlines, the thinking behind it is not. History has witnessed countless ideological clashes both subtle and stark. 

Yet, while it’s easy to criticise Uzbekistan’s rulers for being narrow-minded, those who teach political science must also take tremendous care in how the subject is presented, given its complexity and the need for absolute neutrality and objectiveness.

Crackdowns on the dissemination of ideas considered unorthodox are often called witch-hunts, denigrated in democratic societies as paranoia over contrary opinions. For insecure governments, the immediate reaction is to suppress such thinking before it becomes rooted in the populace. 

As a course of study, political science deals with the full gamut of ideologies, including some that might threaten the status quo in any given country. As a career, political science is often the catalyst to rebellion. The teachers and the thinkers thus become targets of suppression, no matter how objective their analysis.

Uzbekistan’s leaders might change their minds is they were to review what has happened elsewhere. The West, often, has been radically reshaped by daring ideas that arose from political science, particularly towards the end of the colonial era. Count the many Asian “freedom fighters” who took their cues from political-science studies at home and abroad as they struggled to liberate their homelands from foreign control. The field of assessing and comparing political concepts is hardly a bulwark of Western propaganda.

It must be acknowledged that some doctrines have managed to dominate the teaching more than others, but sound instruction in the available choices comes with the caution that no one system is universally better than the rest. Students should emerge from their courses with open minds if nothing else.

In terms of open-mindedness, Uzbekistan has a poor record. With this latest bid to control thought, it is trying to quash the universal, irrepressible yen for freedom, and the tougher the suppression, the more aggressive the teaching becomes. Authoritarian attitudes just end up fostering rebellion after all.

Everyone should have the chance to learn and compare. All political systems have pros and cons, and each might have contributed to humanity at some point, or perhaps will at another stage in the future. Taught without bias, political science is all about the history and the potential, about the possibility of combining even diverse ideas in fresh ways to forge a better society. 

By cutting off this avenue, repressive regimes like that of Uzbekistan only scuttle opportunities to move forward.