Tastanbekova A., Aimaganbetova O.

Al-Farabi Kazakh national university, Kazakhstan

TOPICALITY OF RESEARCH OF THE YOUTH RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN POST-SOVIET KAZAKHSTAN

Keywords: religious identity, religious orientation, research, multiculturalism.

Kazakhstan is a multicultural and multi-confessional state. After the Soviet Union collapse and as a consequence of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Freedom of Belief and Religious Organizations” adopted in 1992 confessional diversity started to form actively in the country. And it included both traditional for Kazakhstan confessions (Islam, Orthodox Christianity), and new organizations of unconventional religion movements which had not been presented in Kazakhstan before. Taking into consideration poly-ethnicity of our state, high tolerance and liberal attitude of Kazakhstan people towards religion, there had not been clashes on the religious ground earlier. But in recent years, when multitude of radical Islamic movements (Hizb ut Tahrir”, “the Islamic Party of Eastern Turkestan”, “Islamic Jihad” and others), Wahhabite Movement, different sects of terroristic character were developing, the problem of religious tolerance, on the one hand, and religious intolerance, on the other hand, have become especially topical issue in Kazakhstan. In 2011, terroristic acts took place in the South and West of Kazakhstan that resulted in increase of religious tension.

Theoretic and methodological basis of our research is formed by theoretical provisions: the dialectic and materialistic approach in national Psychology of Religion (T.A.Bazhan, A.I.Klibanov, D.M.Ugrinovich) [1]; the concept of religious identity as a component of social identity of an individual (S.Moskovichi), the theoretic and empiric practice of national social, cross-cultural and ethnic psychology in research of social identity and its component: religious identity (V.S.Ageev, E.P.Belinskaya, V.V.Gritsenko, N.L.Ivanova, N.M.Lebedeva, S.V.Ryzhova, G.U.Soldatova, T.G.Stefanenko, A.N.Tatarko and others), the concept of “psychology of the self” about religion (E.Erikson), “religion of human nature” in “The Varieties of Religious Experience” by W.James [2].

Taking into account the topicality of our theme, we have carried out a research “religious orientations” at the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in the Law Department and the Department of Philosophy and Political Science. We have surveyed the youth (18-23 years of age) as a sample frame.

The study included 3 methods: “The Method of 20 definitions by M.Kun and T.McPartland” which had been modified by us in order to conduct express-diagnostics, the “Questionnaire of Religious Orientations” by I.M.Bogdanovskaya modified by us, as well as “Religious Orientation Scale” by G.Olport, D.Ross.

Having used the first method we discovered that out of 60 survey participants 4 people specified their religious identity, 1 lawyer and 3 psychologists, and that identity was stated with words “Muslim” and “Believer”. That method has also revealed specific characteristics of the samples concerning such identification characteristics as gender and ethnic-regional identity, perspective and communicative myself, professional perspective. For the Law Department survey participants more significant was perspective professional myself and ethnic-regional identity expressed with such answers as “I am a citizen of the RK”, “I am a future lawyer (advocate, judge, etc.)”. Besides, male representatives of the sample from the Law Department showed identities distinguishing the Kazakh ethnos as ethnic-regional identity, local identity expressed with the answers “I am the bearer of the family name”, “I am a descendant of nomads”, “I am a representative of Kazakh nationality”, etc.

The survey results have educed confession of its participants shown in Fig.1:

According to the chart, the prevailing confession is Islam which can be explained by the ethnic component of the sample: the Kazakhs - 75%, followed percentagewise by “other” confessions specified by the surveyed as Buddhism, Judaism and others. This category also includes such answers as “I believe in God but do not belong to any concrete confession”, “World Religion”, “None Religion”. In other words, one can state that not each of those surveyed (24%) is keen to associate (him-)herself with the definite religion, they are concerned with belief per se.

Fig. 1. Confession of survey participants

One of the Questionnaire questions was “The number of religious people is increasing nowadays. How would you explain this phenomenon?” The answers are presented in Fig.2.

Fig. 2. Attitude of the survey participants to increasing number of religious people in the country

According to the answers demonstrated in Fig.2, we have concluded that in the opinion of the majority of the survey participants the increasing number of the religious people can be explained by ideal searching and filling in the spiritual vacuum. On the second place is the answer “Such thing is commonly accepted now”. “Other” point includes such answers of the survey participants as the increasing number of the religious people “is an attribute of fashion among the youth”

Another Questionnaire question was “Do you regard yourself as a religious person?” The statistics of that question answers is demonstrated in Fig.3.

Fig.3. Religion self-identification

Fig.3 shows that the majority of the survey participants regard themselves religious people, while some of them (28%) do not associate themselves with any specific religion.

As a result of the last method “Religious Orientation Scale” we have discovered the following evidence of devoutness (fig.4):

As seen in Fig.4, the majority of the survey participants evince more consistent external devoutness rather than consistent internal one. Namely, for the most part of Kazakhstan students (79%) religious devoutness appears only extrinsically.

Fig.4. Religious orientation evidence

Thus, our survey has confirmed that the religious identity problem among the post-soviet Kazakhstan youth is especially topical at present. As the “Religious Orientations” survey results have revealed ambiguity of survey participants’ indicators, there is a need in further more detailed study of the problem of the post-soviet Kazakhstan youth religious identity.

References:

[1] Ugrinovich V.P. Religion Psychology. – M.: Politizdat 1986 – p.26

[2] James W. The Varieties of Religious Experience. – M.: Nauka 1983