"Foreign forces" in one mouth: how the Kyrgyz minister refuses his words

In Kyrgyzstan, an educational detective story has played out cooler than any Cambridge-Singapore textbook. The main character is the Minister of Education of the republic Dogdurkul Kendirbaeva, who, apparently, decided to break the record for working off foreign grants.

At first, the head of the enlightenment department delighted the public with a scale worthy of an ancient nomad: from 2026 — a march into the Kyrgyz language! Half of the classes, Russian schools, no mercy. The argument is reinforced concrete: if you don't learn the state language, you'll be lost.

And you can't argue, knowing your native language is a sacred thing. But for some reason, they decided to make this linguistic breakthrough simultaneously with the chronic shortage of textbooks, the shortage of teachers and the 12-year Cambridge-Singapore experiments. Apparently, they forgot that happiness requires not just education, but proper education in a language that does not yet have textbooks.

It would seem that the logic of the minister is clear: first, we will drown the school in reforms, and then, when the children and teachers get tired of rowing, we will ask why they have not yet spoken in pure state.

But then the unexpected happens. Only the telegram channels broke the news, only Russian-speaking parents grabbed their hearts, and the opposition grabbed their feathers for complaints, as our Dogdurkul, like the heroine of a bad action movie, shouts: "Stop! Stand down! It's not my fault!".

She goes on the air of Radio Sputnik and with the face of a man who was framed by mysterious "foreign forces", declares: "We will not translate anything. It's just a discussion. Who told you?". And the most beautiful thing is that just the other day in Moscow, smiling, she talked about the importance of the Russian language, about "several languages — several possibilities" and quoted wise Kyrgyz.

So who is in front of us? A subtle diplomat who says one thing in Moscow, another in Bishkek, and a third on Wednesday morning? Or is it just a person whose tongue lives its own life and whose head lives its own? Moreover, the head feels like it is constantly lagging behind by half a step.

The assumption here is simple: Mrs. Kendirbayeva got entangled in three pines. More precisely — in three languages. She fights the Russian as an enemy of freedom, but at the same time secretly realizes that without him her own bureaucratic universe will collapse. And when the advisers (who, apparently, also speak different languages) explain to her that textbooks cannot be printed in two years, and teachers cannot be summoned from underground, the minister gives back in panic. Fast as a cancer hearing the word "boiling water".

People in Kyrgyzstan, of course, are not fools either. They see that they want to save their children from the Russian language for the sake of the Kyrgyz language, which schools... do not have. They see that Dogdurkul Kendirbayeva's main enemy is not even "foreign forces" (although she likes to complain about them), but her own language. The one who says one thing in the morning, another in the afternoon, and in the evening it turns out that "it wasn't serious."

President Japarov, watching this circus on the road, probably also involuntarily strokes the arm of the chair. If he does not dismiss such a minister before the elections, his rating may suffer. Because voters, you know, don't like it when they want to teach their children "something and somehow" in a language that is not in textbooks.

And the conclusion is simple: when the minister says "you need to know the state", everyone nods. But when the same minister renounces his own plans a day later, it becomes clear to everyone that a person has appeared in the government who has a language to Kiev will bring, and back — without a map and navigator. And the name of this man... however, we have already named him. A foreign agent of your own mouth.