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The Year of the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan

Bashmakov Anatoliy Afanasievich, Deputy Chairman, Assembly of People of Kazakhstan and Deputy Chairman, Association

of Russian, Slavic and Cossack organizations

The Year of the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan (APK) has

started. It is a fusion of the most important historical events: the

550th anniversary of Kazakh Khanate, the seventieth anniversary

of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the twentieth anniversary of

the Constitution and Assembly. Those events are all very different,

but they are all organically woven into one ideological, historical and

spiritual texture. The 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate is

intended not only to attract, but also to teach people to think and

to understand themselves, to realize a deeper involvement in the

country’s history. The Year of the APK is a powerful fusion of jubilee

events and their historical energy.

A work plan of events was approved for the year. This is not a plan of

entertainment events or political shows accompanied with invitations

to foreign celebrities. It is a deeply thought out, logically formed set of

practical actions to address the social, organizational, legal, spiritual

and economic problems in the country.

The most important task of the Year of APK is the formation of moral

qualities among the youth, and a respectful attitude to our history and

national traditions. In other words, the Year of APK has to be a year of

spiritual reproduction.

Any polyethnic society is capable of development only when two

basic substances exist: an ethnic core and a cultural shell. The roots

of the ethnic core in Kazakhstan go back a long time, before the

creation of the Kazakh Khanate and the period of its organization.

Naturally, the formation of the ethnic core is a historically long

process, and it continues today. The cultural shell is more mobile and

its formation is continuous.

The APK is the only institution in the world presented as a spiritual and

methodological centre in the system of ethnic policy and the formation

of ethnic tolerance and culture of international relations. It is not only a

social glue, but also a powerful spiritual brace for Kazakhstani society.

Today regional assemblies and houses of friendship are established in

all regions of the country. Under the APK a scientific expert council of

assembly has been created, and universities have created APK chairs

intended to provide a scientific process of interethnic relations. In 2014

an organizational conference was held, and a republican association

of APK chairs was created. This is a public body, intended to provide

unified methodological academic and educational policy.

Society cannot exist without a value basis. There is a system of values

– and there is a nation. Destruction of one is inevitably accompanied

by the loss of another. Our President very subtly understands and feels

it. For him, the domestic economy was and remains the alpha and

omega. His position and definition, which has become a classic formula

– “first of all economy, then politics” – are in all textbooks of political

science and economic theory. This is an applied slice, but from the

position of metaphysics, the President has another view and belief. For

the Head of State economy is just a method and instrument. His aim is

human: man with his soul and problems.

The ‘rapprochement of cultures’ is the art of bringing people closer together

based on the perception of values common to all cultures and religions

Kazakhstan believes religious leaders can make a valuable contribution to the

solution of complex political problems in close cooperation with leading politicians

Image: APK

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