PSCRP-BESA Reports No 47 (April 5, 2024)
On March 15 at the meeting of the National Kurultai in Atyrau, the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said: “Regarding the state coat of arms, I think it would be advisable to take into account the legitimate points made by experts and people who care, including young people, that the coat of arms of Kazakhstan is too difficult to perceive, it is too eclectic and bears signs of the Soviet era,” adding that “if a general agreement is reached, a special commission could be created to consider all the aspects in detail.”
Everyone understands that any change in the state symbols causes heated discussions that are not always productive. This is because, in general, only a tiny minority of people are ready to embrace change. Most people prefer to keep things as they are, referring to it as the proverbial comfort zone. Even if we are talking about a relatively young state, where inertia has not yet had time to become tradition, and the familiar does not call itself history.
Another reason for resistance to such changes is usually the costliness of the process. The question immediately arises: how much does it cost to change the state symbol? This argument is traditionally used by opponents of renaming when there are no other arguments.
Finally, strange as it may seem, 33 years after the collapse of the USSR and the formation of an independent state, the current coat of arms of Kazakhstan, approved by the Decree of the first President of the Republic of Kazakhstan on June 4, 1992, for many people is sacrosanct, because it contains elements of the Soviet past. Some people secretly harbor nostalgia for the USSR. Others believe that the “unbreakable” USSR may not have been completely destroyed yet. Still others are afraid of hurting the feelings of the former and the latter. Therefore, they prefer not to touch it.
So, is it necessary to change the coat of arms, taking into account all of the above?
Objectively, to answer this question, it is enough to try and describe the current coat of arms, to decipher the meaning of the details, to explain the logic of their presence. Personally, I find it difficult, especially when it comes to winged horses. It is clear that for our country horses have a special gastronomic significance (Kazakhs eat horse meat), but what do wings have to do with it?
An educated American school student will be able to explain why the bald eagle on the Great Seal of the United States of America holds a bundle of arrows in its left talon and an olive branch in its right talon. This means that the United States of America “has a strong desire for peace, but will always be ready for war.”
In February, Kazakhstan’s Zhana Adamdar (“New People”) movement reported that, according to a survey of over 500 people of different ages from Astana and Almaty, 70 percent of respondents could not recognize the coat of arms and “do not understand the meaning of certain elements.”
Meanwhile, the state symbols play an important role in helping the citizens identify themselves with their state. And as such, they should be understandable and relatable to everyone, whereas our current coat of arms is impossible not only to understand and explain, but also to memorize and extract from memory, few people are capable of describing it at a glance. Why, then, should we keep a symbol that is so detached from the citizens?
In my opinion, the simpler and clearer the coat of arms, the more relatable it is. The 16 petals of the yellow chrysanthemum on the imperial seal of Japan are easy to draw, even if you don’t have artistic skills. The red shield with a white cross on the coat of arms of Switzerland can be drawn with your eyes closed. Any Turkish schoolchild can easily draw a red crescent with a five-pointed star.
Therefore, it is safe to say that the coat of arms of Kazakhstan will be considered successful when it is drawn with pride and inspiration by elementary school students.
Yet there is one more important thing. The new coat of arms should signify that a certain era has come to an end. The change of the coat of arms will be a clear signal that we can finally abandon the signs of the Soviet era in the state symbols. This era is definitively over for us. And there is no going back.
After the collapse of the USSR, the country embarked on the difficult path of finding its place and self-identification in the world. Having a clear self-understanding is not a luxury. It is necessary for self-defense and development, for building balanced relations with influential actors in Europe and Asia.
Today’s Kazakhstan is leading in investment growth among the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. In 2023, the number of foreign companies in Kazakhstan increased by almost 20%.
The German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) classifies Kazakhstan as a “middle power” along with Turkey, Israel, India and Saudi Arabia, i.e., a state that plays an important role on the world stage, where economic development, orientation towards security and stability, striving for strategic autonomy and “multifaceted policy” are of paramount importance.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has given Kazakhstan a new impetus in terms of diversification. Kazakhstan’s role as a key country in the Middle Corridor project is huge. The volume of freight traffic along this route doubled in 2022 and increased by another 65% in 2023 to 2.7 million tonnes of freight. Asserting its role as a bridge between East and West, Kazakhstan in its quest for diversification relies not only on China’s global Silk Road project, but also on the EU’s Global Gateway strategy.
Kazakhstan has joined the elite club of states that have created their own vaccine against COVID. Now the country is creating its own supercomputer. We are already manufacturing our own drones equipped with modern video surveillance systems, sensors, rangefinders and thermal imagers.
The change of state symbols should mark a new stage. We are no longer the same country that we were in 1992, when the existing coat of arms of Kazakhstan was hastily adopted. We have left the collapsed empire, which still cannot come to terms with its own fall. We have traveled a vast steppe of initial development. Kazakhstan is moving on. And our state needs new state symbols as our new trademark and new perspective plan.
Talgat Kaliyev, political scientist, Director of Institute of Applied Ethnopolitical Research, Ambassador-at-large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan