The Aslan Alliance projects come under a thematic program: “Who Is My Neighbor?”

The Aslan Alliance program “Who Is My Neighbor?” involves the creation of "a culture of trust" by developing cultural understanding, ethics education, religious cooperation, and social responsibility in order to help solve Kyrgyzstan’s social problems. Ultimately we believe that the people of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia will be responsible for their own development, but they will need to work together in a spirit of cooperation and trust to achieve their own stability and prosperity. The days of believing that the future of Central Asia depends on a distant imperial capital must be quietly put to rest.

Many pundits believe that economic prosperity alone can solve poverty, vice, greed, corruption, etc. The transition from the Soviet Union to the Kyrgyz Republic involved more than changes in an economic or political system. The collapse of an ideology, the erosion of law and order, the rise of unrestrained capitalism, and the need for new social structures cannot be replaced by a western free market democracy without some critical adjustments.

The question of whether democracy is actually the best political system for the new Central Asian nation states remains outside the province of the Aslan Alliance research. Given that there has been an intentional agenda to bring the “blessings” of the West to the post-Soviet nations of the East, it would be worthwhile to seek a better fit between worldviews that for more than 70 years considered each other mortal enemies. While no one still fights the Cold War except for a few diehards, the fact remains that there are serious disjunctions between those bringing the resources of globalizing forces and those struggling to build a new identity and stability following the dismantling of the Soviet Union.

One of those disjunctions relates to the wide cultural gap between East and West. This gap has been exploited by extremist Muslim groups who use Islam as a political tool to oppose western influences such as democracy, secularism, and Christianity. Social programs that reflect a knee- jerk western reaction to this threat propose to promote “human rights and democracy in the Muslim world.” The expectation is that modern western values, being inherently superior, will be able to reform an ancient world religion. This presupposition needs more investigation and we believe must be examined in the light of ethnic and cultural values.

Western nation builders promote democracy and capitalism as the panacea for the collapsed Soviet world. Forgotten is the realization that the planners of the Soviet Union dedicated much research to the contextualization of "communism." Joseph Stalin himself formulated and executed the plan to integrate the hundreds of ethnicities assembled under the hammer, sickle and star of the Union under the ideology of a "universal brotherhood of workers." For those who resisted the integration there were only two remedies: be purged or be deported.

It would be foolish to presume that a new ideology built on the freedom of individuals with inalienable rights protected by laws could easily and quickly replace the old ideology that lay on the foundation of ancient cultural patterns of communalism. The idea that an ideology based on "every man for himself" can construct a strong national unity must also be questioned. Political honesty, servant leadership, social ethics, public morality, civic mindedness, and loyalty to God and country are values that must accompany the building of a new nation.

The Aslan Alliance works with universities, academic institutes, governmental and non-governmental organizations, community and ethnic societies, religious organizations, and private individuals to accumulate a store of cultural and ethnographic data that can be applied to specific projects. An understanding of ethnocentric bias will help to apply more effective methodologies to western-conceived projects, and secure more successful projects among Central Asian communities.

Despite the inescapable reality of cultural divides we also recognize that good will and trust can bridge misunderstandings and stereotyping. Honesty and genuine concern for the people of Kyrgyzstan must also be essential ingredients to a successful cultural revolution in this region. The integrity of the Aslan Alliance requires that we achieve a balance of professional excellence with a personal human touch for all our projects as we attempt to answer the question “Who Is My Neighbor?”

For more information on the Aslan Alliance program and projects contact aslan@aslan4all.com