Cambridge Central Asia Forum (Post-event Summary Report)

 

Name of event: Intra and extra regionalism in Central Asia: challenges and perspectives 

 Date of event: 28 January, 2022 - 11:00 to 13:00 (GMT+0)

 Location of event: in-person SG2; Contemporary history center, AS Uzbekistan (online)

 Number of attendee: more 50

 Organizer: collaboration with UKRI GCRF COMPASS Project

 Keynote speaker: Professor Rakhimov

 E-mail: mirzonur@yahoo.com

The Cambridge Central Asia Forum held in collaboration with the Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge about controversial topic -  Intra and extra Regionalism in Central Asia: Challenges and Perspectives. The seminar was held on online and in-person. Offline seminar attendees participated in SG2, Contemporary history center and online seminar was organised via Zoom Meeting platform in 16:00 p.m with time of Tashkent. 

Seminar opened by Dr. Mirzokhid Rakhimov and he concentrated about Central Asia in historical  perspective of international relations; Regional partnership within Central Asia; Diversity of external regionalism in Central Asia and other issues which will be provided in following statements. Doctor began his speech with notes of Abu Raykhon Beruniy "the history of yesterday is a school of life for us, a clear mirror. We can learn from this, draw conclusions, determine the path to the future". He mentioned about "Great Game" issue, problems of intra regional cooperation, new trends of Central Asia cooperation, Diversity of extra regional initiatives and also main approaches on regionalism. 

Professor Rakhimov continued his speaking SCO in India and Pakistan. He has spoken about books which published between different countries and languages, like, "Insights and Commentaries/ South and Central Asia" edited by Amita Sengupta; Mirzokhid Rakhimov; "Новейшая История Центральная Азии" by Konrad Adenaur Stiftung.

After speech of professor, there was a small questionnaire among speaker and attendees. Participants wanted to know more about the situation of Afganistan, also January events in Kazakhstan and help of the CSTO would influence the CA intra-regional cooperation. Most interesting expression was from Glyn Alban Roberts, he said "What an excellent Central Asian Uzbekistan survey from both a historical and contemporary perspective. I've been twice to Uzbekistan and hope to visit again, maybe in 2022. Thank you very much". 

In the end of the seminar, Doctor closed his speech with one of the Solon's remark "If we want to know where we are going we must know what we want". All members of seminar supported the idea of enlarging academic partnership and joining projects on Central Asia, comparative regional and international studies, analyzing the processes for the correlation and mutual influence of national, regional and global issues.