When Ancestors' Dream Came True

The need to comprehend the meaning of Independence Day is dictated, on the one hand, by more than five centuries of depth and versatility in the history of the formation and development of Kazakh statehood. On the other hand, the need to create the future of Kazakhstan today, to define its aspirations and opportunities. For being independent means being responsible for your own destiny. However, today in Kazakhstani society there is no single approach to the assessment of our independence. Moreover, the opinions of well-known Kazakhstani social scientists are characteristic in this respect.

The term sovereignty has a long history, which originates from Aristotle, continues with other philosophers, the American and French revolutions, and by now it has undergone many transformations. If at first he designated the sovereignty of the ruler, he subsequently began to serve to signify the will of the people of the nation-state, that is, of the people's sovereignty. It was only since the end of the World War II that the understanding of sovereignty as the will of the peoples became the basis for political legitimation of the state structure. United Nations Charter as one of the main objectives the affirms respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes that the will of the people expressed by the voting results becomes the basis of the authority of the government.

Sovereignty, from the point of view of modernity, implies the supremacy of state power inside the country, which is expressed in the universality of its power, extending to all subjects, the ability to abolish any other power, except for the power of the people, the presence of a coercive apparatus, which other subjects do not possess. Such supremacy has territorial limits, that is, the state extends its power throughout the country. At the same time, supremacy does not mean unlimited state power, since in a democratic society, state power is limited by law and is based on law. T

he unity of sovereignty lies in the fact that it cannot be divided between the various holders of power and belongs to the state as a whole, and not to its individual parts or bodies. Of course, the independence of state power is not absolute. Being a participant in global processes, each state is affected by the norms and principles of international law, and the sovereignty of modern states is self-limited by the need to respect natural, inalienable human rights, as well as the mutual obligations of states under international treaties.

As criteria that determine the sovereignty of the state, one should consider the significance of those issues whose independent solution is voluntarily or forcibly limited. A significant amount of the characteristics of the internal aspects of state sovereignty expressed in literature can be extended to popular sovereignty. Thus, the autonomy of creating a system of state bodies, empowering them with authority, can be attributed to the internal expression of national sovereignty, while the establishment of the rule of law, the adoption of laws and the maintenance of law and order, the exercise of jurisdictional activity relate to the expression of state sovereignty. In turn, the independence of the state in implementing foreign policy, resolving issues of participation in international organizations, concluding an alliance with other states, protecting the state border, declaring war and proclaiming peace are the external side of state sovereignty. Speaking about the relationship between state and national sovereignties, it is necessary to especially note the primacy of national sovereignty. It is necessary to agree with the statement that state sovereignty is a political and legal form of independence of the people. It is highly legitimate to connect the independence of a people from other peoples with the independence of its state from other states.

In the history of Kazakhstan there were a lot of dramatic and high minutes, hours and days. Three December days and nights of 1986 became such in the newest national history. It has been 30 years since the day of these events. In this regard, the leaders of political parties, well-known political figures, as well as the overwhelming majority of the deputies of Parliament, on behalf of millions of our citizens made a proposal to the President about the need for a new objective political and legal assessment of these events on the eve of this date. This appeal was published in dozens of newspapers in both Kazakh and Russian languages. And very timely. Full information about the December events in Kazakhstan has not yet been collected; neither numerous public commissions nor the deputy group, which conducted a special investigation, could provide it. The documents of these public organizations still remain closed to the public, and their conclusions do not contain any revelations. Most of the documents will never receive a public announcement, since it was destroyed. Meanwhile, the December events are still worrying the minds of people, and this issue is constantly awake. The holy duty of every Kazakhstani is to preserve the continuity of generations as a factor of respect for the history of the Kazakh people and as a guarantee of the prosperity of our multinational fatherland.

As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan was left alone with its own complex problems. Probably, if this geopolitical shift into independence occurred later, Kazakhstan would be fully prepared to confidently walk on its own feet and in its own way. But indisputably another: even the smallest sons grow out of short pants and form independent families. So for the most part and the peoples, their statehood naturally became independent in their own time.

At that historical moment, the country faced an urgent task - to overcome post-totalitarian forms of state organization, to form democratic institutions of power in the absence of a civil society. For Kazakhstan, it was complicated by the fact that it had to be solved in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. The question of the formation of self-determination, the new identity of people, arose; a conscious, only adequate choice of development was needed. Social problems, identity crisis could lead to a sharp ethnic crisis. In a society, socio-economic problems were exacerbated by a political crisis. In the republic, political battles on the choice of the long-term path of development grew, inter-party struggle and confrontation intensified.

At that difficult moment, the President was able to take on all the fullness of historical responsibility for the future of the country. Thus, vital fundamental political and market transformations were carried out, which in turn ensured stability in the society and set a powerful impetus to large-scale reforms that determined the logic of the country's development. Modern society, which is characterized by a market economy, urban form of settlement, etc., requires an integrated mechanism for achieving civil consent. This mechanism must evolve, since at each stage of the evolution of society itself, it will face new challenges.

The meaning of world history, if one looks at events not from the position of the past five or even ten years, but from the height of Time, consists in expanding the space of Man’s possibilities, in the pursuit of the individual for Freedom. The people are a collective person. The goal of the people is to be a state. The nation that formed the state is the nation. Both national freedom and individual liberty rest behind the state. The story itself, moving peoples and people towards Freedom in the great Eurasian space, prepared what had happened. And this is a fact.

The evidence of the initial aspiration of the Kazakh people for political self-determination is incontrovertible. Ideas of self-determination in Kazakhstan appeared at least immediately after the 1905 revolution in Russia. And after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917, in the ethnopolitogenesis of the Kazakhs, a strong impulse of national self-consciousness was observed. A serious attempt was made to create a new Kazakh statehood by the constitutional-democratically-minded national intelligentsia. And what was, if not the national self-determination of the Kazakhs, in the Middle Ages the historical displacement of the Zhanibek and Kerey khans, who formed the first Kazakh Khanate, whose population soon already reached a million people.

Therefore, in order to study the formation of the statehood of Kazakhstan, first of all, one should take into account aspects of both the territorial basis of statehood and the historical time of its formation and specific paradigms of the civilizational situation. The transformation of the power organization and the legal system of the country is reflected in its constitutional evolution. The key element in it was the Constitutional Law “On State Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan” of December 16, 1991, which opened the way to the establishment of de facto sovereignty.

What is the sovereignty of Kazakhstan today? As a social phenomenon, it is and should be strengthened primarily as a state-legal integrity of Kazakhstan society. Sovereignty is the essence of being a state and has pre-class origin. Such authority initially matured as a sovereignty in its qualities of centralization and supremacy. In the naturally occurring community and their associations, it stemmed from the need of people to develop and expand their living space, to produce on it the conditions of their own reproduction, including the institutionalization of power to forcibly get rid of cannibalism and incest, to establish exogamous relationships.

The survival and continuation of the human race in any ethnic community is not the merit of classes and class contradictions, which are secondary and far from always irreconcilable, but of streamlining social diversity by a single, universally recognized power. Objectively, the state, as the sovereign organization of people, arises long before the formation of classes in their Marxist-Leninist understanding, but without fail on the natural ethno-landscape and ethnosocial bases. And there are no prerequisites for refusing, as was done recently by Soviet historiography and state science, to peoples with special self-organization and peculiar socion-regulatory structures in possession of statehood and the state. Political relations, we believe, have existed since people had primitive group interests in the distribution and redistribution of vital energy resources.

The first and main question of the theory of a new independent state is the question of why is it, and no other state where it is? The territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan in its legal (recognized by contiguous states and the international community) nature is the correspondence of the actual territorial possession of this state to the natural right of the Kazakh nation to self-determination in the process of historically determined and necessary distribution of the geographical environment among the humankind's ethnic groups living in this part of the Earth.

Kazakhstan within its present borders has historically been the territory of the ethnic settlement of the tribes that later constituted the Kazakh nation and the Kazakh Khanate. In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the Kazakhs practically controlled the entire territory of modern Kazakhstan.

The titular nation by the right of historical fate is and will always be the ethno-political basis of the state independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The ethno-political basis informs the sovereignty of the Republic of Kazakhstan of the organic quality of its disobedience to the power of any other state and means the inviolability of the territorial integrity and political independence of the Kazakh people in all spatial boundaries of the country.

On the other hand, the power in the state becomes truly supreme, with qualitatively inherent stability, when it unites the people living in the territory of its potential jurisdiction into a people. The supremacy of state power can be primarily as a territorial supremacy. The interrelation of state power and the population gives a derivative - the people are two crucial channels: through the development of their own territory by labor resources and the organization of optimal labor productivity on it, the acquisition of property by people, as well as through the understanding and use of power by authorities and structures as a rule of social solidarity and equal measure of freedom of citizens from nationality, religion and other circumstances of origin and social status.

The grounds of the sovereignty of the Republic of Kazakhstan are historical reality. While the ethno-political basis of the sovereignty of the Republic of Kazakhstan determines it, then it means that due to it the same nation state is in the same place, that is, it is in general relative to other states in the world community of nations. The fact that the social and legal basis of the sovereignty of the Republic of Kazakhstan conditions it means that, thanks to the peace and the creation of material and spiritual values, it makes this state what it is and can be better.

These grounds are not isolated and penetrate one into another with their potential, while multiplying the potential of the sovereign of the greatness of Kazakhstan as the common homeland of people of one historical destiny. There is a dialectical connection of the foundation as the soil of the independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the foundation as an action, the beginning and aspiration of the state of Kazakhstan to the future, to its prosperity and security.

The Republic of Kazakhstan, and other republics of the former Soviet Union, which became sovereign by the end of the 20th century, are not accidentally called in the developed countries and the United Nations as new independent states. Such a state, apparently, already had formal legal sovereignty (because it did not become called a country liberated from colonial dependence, like the countries of Asia and Africa during the 50s and 60s), although its territory succession was dependent. Until a certain time, the predecessor state represented by the Soviet Union favored relations of this territory with other similar republics within the Union and for its interests in the international arena. The Republic of Kazakhstan is a new independent state on the territory of the former Kazakh SSR. Clearly, the question arises: after all, any object or phenomenon becomes new, when there is a change in the essence or those features that define this object and its very being. As regards the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kazakh SSR, we affirm that its internal continuity was preserved and continuous.

Yes, in our opinion, thanks to state independence and full-fledged international legal personality. During the five-year period, a full legal base of international cooperation has been created, over a thousand documents have been signed with foreign countries and international organizations. Kazakhstan is a sovereign equal state to any other independent country in the world. A completely new quality of statehood in Kazakhstan was added by what he didn’t have, but became on the very same substances of this state - on a whole territory, a single indigenous nation and one Kazakhstan people, which did not disappear, but exist continuously, undergoing social and political changes. . In particular, the monopolistic nature of state power and the ideologization of the economy of Kazakhstan have been overcome, the national currency is functioning.

Independent Kazakhstan can be called a qualitatively new, but not young, state because our state is the result of the development of the statehood of the past and at the same time the beginning of a future socially effective rule of law state. There was a kind of denial of denial at the state level, the main thing in which - the moment of continuity of territorial, ethno-political and socio-demographic grounds - is preserved. And the acquisition of sovereignty by a state with limited international law and capacity means such a significant qualitative change that makes it, from the point of view of international law, new, new, makes it a full subject of this right. Therefore, a new, independent Kazakhstan is not a young sovereign state. The past of Kazakhstan, in which the qualities of its state independence matured, is infinite, as is the future of its history.

The most important resource of the head of our state is the trust and support from society. In this regard, the President of Kazakhstan has the highest and most stable trust rating on the part of Kazakhstanis. The most important difference of Kazakhstan's development experience is stability. This stability was ensured by the accuracy and reliability of the model of state power that lined up around the central figure, President Nazarbayev. Today, Kazakhstan took place as a state, and the head of state took place as an influential world-class politician. According to Nursultan Nazarbayev, a critical point in the development of Kazakhstani statehood has already been passed, that we have avoided a radical denial and destruction of the administrative system of managing the economy and society before creating a replacement for it. This is perhaps one of the main reasons for the economic and political stability of Kazakhstan.

Nursultan Nazarbayev then proved himself as a promising politician, able to choose the right direction for society. He owned the experience of party management vertically, which at that transitional period was, perhaps, crucial, because there were still old cadres in the field who swore allegiance to him as the first secretary of the Central Committee. In the transitional years, it is important to maintain a certain continuity of power.

Recent history has proved the truth of this thesis. In accordance with the constitution, the President forms the administration. According to the 1993 Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the President was the head of state and headed the single system of executive power of the Republic. Under these conditions, there was a unified Administration of the President and the Government. However, the need to more fully ensure the powers of the President and the Government, the delimitation of the functions of the Office of the President and the Government caused the reorganization of the single office of the President and the Government.

An independent Presidential Administration and the Office of Government Affairs were created. Among the consultative and advisory bodies under the President of the country, the Security Council is central, consisting of the Prime Minister, the State Secretary, the head of administration and presidential aides, the heads of all law enforcement agencies, the Attorney General, the Foreign Minister and the Minister of Finance. The main task of the Security Council is to coordinate the activities of law enforcement agencies, central and local executive bodies, the study of draft laws and control over the implementation of regulatory documents. The activities of the Security Council are provided by its own secretariat.

Being independent Kazakhstan can be understood in different ways. Either this is the present, conserving past of the nation, or it is the present as the beginning of a future nation with a legal, social state. Constitutional registration in the Republic of Kazakhstan received exactly the second, progressive direction. After all, the ideals and purpose of society can not be contrary to historical trends. The ongoing development of our statehood is continuous. The measure of the foreseeable future of the state of Kazakhstan in the present era of sovereign development will be the time of independent existence and advancement along various programs and strategies. This is a time of sustainable development. It is marked by economic growth and stable political relations based on the 1995 Constitution, on the adoption and evolution of its norms and regulations in life.

This time should be filled with the activities of Kazakhstanis to achieve a relatively complete economic independence and defense of the state, turning it from a raw material, mining, industrial, mainly self-sufficient exporting state in its economic basis. Another important issue today is the content and degree of independence. Independence from whom and how much? Indeed, at any level of self-sufficiency of a country in the modern integral world, states will always be interdependent, although sovereign. There is no absolute independence of states, just as there is no full human freedom: the first are developed in the world community of states and solidarity nations, the second can live only in society. However, let us not forget that there is a critical limit for economic borrowing, the excess of which inevitably leads to an increase in the political dependence of the state and dangerously increases the likelihood of loss of sovereignty.

Vulnerability of a huge state territory is also increasing due to a significant decrease in the level of population density and the disproportionate allocation of labor resources. “The strategic task is that, - indicates the first President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, to maximize the positive aspects of globalization and to neutralize or nullify its negative consequences, which can be quite a lot, especially for developing countries.Today, Kazakhstan retains such independence, which gives the people, each Kazakhstani the opportunity to determine the course of their own destiny.

Today, Kazakhstan is a member of leading international organizations - the UN, OSCE, OIC, SCO, CIS and other international organizations. Over the years of independence, Kazakhstan has established diplomatic relations with 180 countries of the world, and chaired such authoritative international organizations. In addition, the state launched the process of regularly holding a congress of leaders of world and traditional religions, joined the WTO, effectively mediated conflict resolution, initiated the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of building a world free of nuclear weapons, gained non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council in 2017 anf 2018. Kazakhstan has always been and remains open to mutually beneficial partnership with the fraternal Central Asian states, the development of multi-faceted allied relations with Russia on the basis of the Treaty on Good Neighborhood and Alliance in the 21st century, as well as within the Eurasian Economic Union, the CIS and the CSTO.

Enhanced strategic cooperation with China. The countries jointly implement large-scale projects, ensure the development of transit links by linking the Nurly Zhol program and the Belt and Road Initiatives. Active cooperation has been established in the framework of the SCO, CICA and other regional structures. Kazakhstan aims to further strengthen its strategic partnership with the United States, primarily in the areas of trade, investment, finance, security, and the introduction of advanced practices in government and business.

These priorities dominate the agenda of relations with the European Union - the largest trade, economic and investment partner of Kazakhstan, as well as its individual member states. Kazakhstan will strengthen traditional cooperation with historically close countries of the post-Soviet space in bilateral and multilateral formats.

Kazakhstan, as an integral part of the Islamic world, will continue to deepen cooperation with the states of the Middle and Near East, with which it has close spiritual and economic ties. The country intends to step up efforts on the Asian foreign policy vector. Here, the focus is on deepening trade, economic and technological cooperation. Relationships are steadily developing with partners in the Latin America and Caribbean region, as well as on the African continent. In general, Kazakhstan from an inexperienced newcomer in world politics of a quarter-century sample turned into a popular mediator in resolving acute international crises - from Nagorno-Karabakh and Tajikistan to Iran and Syria.

Now, when Kazakhstan stands firmly on firm legs, she has conducted several events of a global scale. For Kazakhstan, which was the first of all post-Soviet states to hold such a prestigious and important event as EXPO-2017, getting into ratings and improving positions in them is very important to meet the best international standards. Undoubtedly, the main goal is not just getting into one or another rating, but improving the quality of life of a country's population. Kazakhstan, in terms of these ratings, is slowly but surely moving forward. Nevertheless, given the global competition, many countries do not stand still, but are developing at a faster pace. Therefore, Kazakhstan, in order to improve the quality of life of the population and diversify the economy for less dependence on world oil and gas prices, including the need to develop the infrastructure of alternative energy sources, which are also environmentally friendly.

As the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan noted, We are building an independent, prosperous, politically stable Kazakhstan and, as a scientist, I associate the country's continued prosperity with the process of expanding scientific thinking in society, with even greater use of scientific achievements in all spheres, the life of every citizen and the state as a whole . The prosperity of Kazakhstan is in our competent and hardworking people; in our traditions that are always open to innovation; in our common values ​​of stability, prosperity, mutual respect, friendship. Wide and endless Kazakh land. In territory, it ranks ninth in the world and, in the words of the poet, can hold five Frances or ninety-nine Belgium. This hulk is a priceless legacy forever left to us by our ancestors. The main thing after gaining independence was the preservation for the people of every piece of holy land.

Further development of the republic will take place in the mainstream of strengthening statehood, economic prosperity and democratization of the entire social and political life of the society. And if in relation to the economy, we have recently used such a breakthrough, then in the relations of democratization, public administration reforms, as world experience shows, the state power system should be developed in stages, in an evolutionary way. Without disturbing the balance in the society, not destabilizing it, but serving to strengthen the independence of Kazakhstan, its integrity, stability and prosperity. Therefore, as Nursultan Nazarbayev noted in his message, we need to harmoniously take into account both the general patterns of building democratic and prosperous states, and important cultural, historical features and traditions of our society.

Kazakhstan’s specificity is that it possesses the features of both a developed country (universal population literacy, a wide network of research institutions, space research) and a developing one (raw materials orientation of the economy, environmental pollution in many regions, the need for foreign investment and the import of new technologies infrastructure lag). Next to this is hyperterritoriality, inland location, vast reserves of natural resources, and the diverse ethnic composition of the population. The combination of all this determines our place in the world community, the strategy of the formation and development of Kazakhstan as a sovereign nation state for the most difficult transition period.

Kazakhstan has succeeded in instilling the sense of patriotism amongst its people. Patriotism, as one of the ideologies of the country, is an element of both public and individual consciousness. At the level of public consciousness, patriotism means the national and state idea of ​​the unity and uniqueness of a given people. Modern Kazakhstan needs patriotic traditions and values ​​to be learned by the population and become individual and group behavioral programs. If you delve into history, you can say that Kazakhstan did not immediately become independent. Our state gained sovereignty and freedom in the course of the centuries-old struggle.

Thousands of people fought for the independence of our country, many died for the future of their homeland. For many centuries our land was a battlefield, many nations wanted to seize it. A lot of blood has been shed. People of those times saw death and injustice, grief and misfortune, they knew what loss was. But they did not give up. It is thanks to them that we live in a free and independent state. All this is due to the unity, solidarity of people and the general faith in a bright future. At the end of the twentieth century, the world map changed dramatically. The reason for this was the collapse of the giant empire of the Soviet Union, on the fragments of which fifteen new independent states were formed. One of them is the Republic of Kazakhstan, located in the heart of the Eurasian continent.

World politicians regarded this event as a natural victory for nations that for many centuries were under the yoke of the totalitarian regime and now striving for independence. However, they believed that for the formation and development of the newly formed young states, their accession to the world community is necessary for at least fifty years. They doubted that countries that had experienced colonial oppression for several centuries, lost signs of state independence, having political and economic levers of managing society destroyed during seventy years of domination of the command and administrative system, could quickly enter the world community. But all this was refuted by the progressive movement of the new state of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which became a new phenomenon in the development of world civilization.

I.BAKHYTZHANULY