Tajikistan Moves to Ban Russian Language
DUSHANBE, July 23 (RIA Novosti) - Tajikistan's president has
proposed banning the Russian language from being used in public
institutions and official documents, a move he said would promote
the development of Tajik and bolster patriotism in the
country.
Rakhmon urged a new language law to amend 1989 legislation that defined
Tajik as the official language and Russian as a language of
"interethnic communication," which gave the latter a de facto
official status allowing people to use it in dealing with
authorities, and receive information and documents in Tajik or
Russian.
The new draft law proposed by the president and submitted to
parliament obliges all nationals to know Tajik and speak it in
official situations and public workplaces.
The president criticized newspaper journalists for a poor knowledge
of Tajik, for using clumsy or misleading phrases and terminology,
and even making spelling mistakes.
In the Soviet period, Russian was the lingua franca
among the various ethnic groups in Tajikistan and other ex-Soviet
republics. Many ethnic Russians have fled Tajikistan since the
breakup of the Soviet Union and the ensuing civil war, but Russian
is still spoken by much of the native population.
Russian is still an official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, and it is also widely spoken in Ukraine and some other
parts of the former Soviet Union.
http://en.rian.ru/exsoviet/20090723/155595756.html
These politicians talk cock and bull.
The reality of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan is that their top
end of the workforces ie doctor, teacher, nurse, engineer,
face crumbling economies, corrupt political systems, poor
wage, cannot beat domestic inflation.
Long after the breakup of USSR, these people have to sneak into
Moscow as migrant workers.
Facing tough Russian's labour quota and mind
boggling border crossing red tape, many are forced to
travel on forged passport or fake border crossing
stamp.
They face harassment, bribery, beating, jailing, even rape
from corrupt ticket inspector or corrupt migration official while
undertaking long second or third class train's journey to
Moscow.
When they reach Moscow, they face further harassment, bribery,
beating, jailing, even rape from corrupt migration official or
corrupt Mascow's police.
In any case, their travel documents specify traveling to a
particular area or district and does not allow them the
freedom of movement around Moscow.
In other words, they can only find work in the area their passports
specify. If they are caught traveling, working or
residing elsewhere, the police asks for a bribe, sexual
favour or initiates beating or jailing.
They travel to Moscow to find job, not as high flying
executives. But as toilet cleaner, if they are lucky. Sex
slavery or unpaid or underpaid exploited labour, if they are
unlucky.
