Tadschikistan, Uzbekistan, 1993

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Central Asian Republics started to assert their own identities. In most of the Islamic Republics this ended in violence and war. The government of Uzbekistan, however, took recourse to other, rather unorthodox measures. It allowed the children belonging to the different ethnic groups to choose their own linguistic medium of instruction in school. If, however, Islam, i.e. Arabic, should prove to be the only option, then the fat would have landed in the fire. To compensate the failure of communism by introducing Islam, only means that the Prophet Mohammed is not a far cry from Karl Marx.

a film by Gordian Troeller
original title: Von Marx zu Mohammed
camera: Gordian Troeller
sound: Karin Beißel, Brigitte Dahm-Bauchwitz
editor: Rosemie Arnemann
colour
28 minutes

The film only exists in the German version.

Download the script