Kyrgyz Religious Hatred Trial Throws Spotlight On Ancient Creed

[rug]

By Gulaiym Ashakeeva, Farangis Najibullah

January 31, 2012

A prominent activist in a spiritual movement that predates Islam has gone on trial in Kyrgyzstan charged with inciting religious and ethnic hatred.

The charges were brought against Kubanychbek Tezekbaev by the National Security Committee in December after Kyrgyzstan's state Religious Committee concluded that some remarks he made to Kyrgyz media were aimed at stirring up religious and ethnic enmity.

In a radio interview on June 16, 2011, Tezekbaev said many mullahs in Kyrgyzstan were "former alcoholics and murderers" who try to conceal their inappropriate past.

If found guilty, Tezekbaev faces up to five years in prison. A verdict is expected on February 1.

http://www.rferl.org/content/kyrgyz_religious_hatred_trial_throws_spotlight_on_ancient_creed/24469022.html

The religion at issue is Tengriism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengriism

[dmallind]

1. Never heard of it. Had to smile though

Maybe word order is different in the original language, but insulting people by calling them alcoholics AND THEN murderers could be a strange sign too.

It's like saying "Goddammit Harry you're a pain in the ass. You borrow $5 from me and never pay it back, you mow your lawn way too early in the morning, and you ass-raped my son. Knock it off will ya?"

[rug]

2. According to wiki they're related to Nestorians.

I'd like to see your last sentence translated into Chalcedonian. It would make a nice t-shirt.

[dmallind]

3. Vaguely heard of them. Kind of psuedo-adoptionists IIRC. Chalcedonian language?

Certainly don't know enough about them to know whether the weird insults are the result of a strange dogmatic view of alcohol or just language differences.

Speaking ofwhich I thought the Council of Chalcedon and all that still used Greek. now I'm no expert on all Byzantine and Syrian dialects but I don't think that it rises to a separate language. May be wrong there. Happy to be corrected.

Actually given the stereotypes of ancient Greeks, the quip is probably even more fun then.

[GliderGuider]

4. Oddly enough, I just ran into that religion yesterday, under the name of Tengerism

I was researching a somewhat shocking allegation from the book "A Story Waiting to Pierce You" by the philologist Peter Kingsley. The allegation was that the first Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama requested that Altan Khan, a Mongol descendant of Ghengis Khan, wipe out the shamanism that was in competition with Buddhism at the time (1578 CE).

In Kingsley's words the Dalai Lama asked the Khan to "wipe out every single trace of shamanism among his Mongol people, smash and burn their sacred instruments, exterminate their practices, silence their songs, and annihilate any shaman stupid enough to resist."

On the site http://www.tengerism.org/lamaism.html I found the following description:

[div class="excerpt" style="border:solid 1px #000000"]The Manchurian Emperors [Qing Dynasty] instigated a number of aggressive and brutal measures against shamanism during the 17th century, including the humiliation of Oirad’s official Neij (1557-1653) and Zayar Bandid Namhayjamts (1575-1662). The teachings of Maydar Hutagt, sent to Mongolia for the intensification of Lamaism, spread in Mongolia. Shamans were killed, murdered, burnt with dog droppings, and subjected to many fines paid in livestock. Between the 1860’s and 1904, there were three mass burnings at campfires around Horchin, at which it was said, “The ones who have real powers will emerge unscathed, but the remainders shall die.”
(Lamaism is their term for Tibetan Buddhism.)

This raises two thoughts for me:

The first is that it's obvious from the OP news story that the suppression of the shamanic religion of Tengerism in that area is still active.

The second, darker thought is for the Tibetan Buddhists who are now being suppressed in turn by the Chinese:
Karma really is a bitch.

[rug]

5. That's fascinating information.

Nothing good comes from the melding of religion and the state.