Great Game in the Pamirian Knot - Geopolitical Impact and Long-Lasting Effects

Boundaries and diversity are used as distinguishing classifiers in numerous contexts. Boundary-making plays a major role in the political sphere when the momentum and range of power are at stake. Long-lasting effects can be observed in colonial contexts, in the process of nation-building and in the delineation of spheres of influences. Geopolitics has received a bad reputation when ideologies and dictatorial regimes aimed at the extension of their dominions. In the Central Asian context, geopolitics have played a major role for socioeconomic development in the arena between different spheres of influences.

The specific interests of superpowers of their time had long-reaching effects into the spatial and economic periphery. Exogenously stimulated developments resulted often in transforming local living conditions. When discussing the significance of colonial intervention and geopolitical interferences, we have to keep in mind external strategies and their implementation versus regional and local responses. The present-day perception of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan as nation states is strongly linked to their political affiliation in the 20th century in general and during the Cold War in particular. Kirghiz ,as a Turkic language and Tajik, an Iranian language, are written in Cyrillic script, while the Tajik of Afghanistan, Dari, is written in the Arabo-Persian script, in a similar manner as Urdu in Pakistan. Tajik and Dari symbolize the difference in script, lexemes and loan words which symbolize the socio-political backgrounds in two langs which originate from Persian.

The same applies for a number of minority languages spoken in the Pamirs and the Hindukush mountains. The Turkic idiom of Uigur experienced a shift from a Persian script towards Latin and back. In each instance a political move was involved. Presently, in some countries, the changes of scripts are discussed again as a symbol for independence, traditional values and breaking with colonial and geopolitical legacies.