Muhammad Salih

Muhammad Salih (born 20 December 1949) is an Uzbek political opposition leader and writer.

He was born in the Yangibazar District of the Khorezm region of Uzbekistan on December 20, 1949.

He is a descendant of the well-known aristocratic family Khorezm Beks.

He was named after his birth as Muhammad Salih as consonant to his father's name, Muhammad Amin (Madamin).

In 1966 he graduated from high school in Khorezm.

In 1968 he was drafted into the army.

In August 1968, he participated in the intervention of the Soviet Army in Czechoslovakia.

After demobilization (1970) Salih studied journalism with the faculty of Tashkent State University.

After graduation, he was a listener at the higher literature courses at the Writers' Union in Moscow.

In 1977, he published his first collected poems which brought him instantaneous fame as a poet of avant-gardism.

After he was warned by Laziz Kayumov, the main ideologist of the Republic and Chief Editor of the newspaper “Sovet Uzbekistoni”, about the “Baneful influence of the West in poetry”, the first period of his destiny was to be rejected by socialist society.

Henceforth and till the 90s he was called a “westernizer in poetry, distant from national traditions”.

Salih's early creative activity characterized by the concord of western avant-gardism (especially surrealism) with the complicative Sufi philosophy (especially the school of Djalal ad-Din Rumi) and metaphorics linked to its mystical foundation.

He translated the prose of Franz Kafka and French poets of the 20th century.

His poems were translated into many languages.

Hundreds of articles and books have been written about him.

His poems were first translated to Russian by Victor Sosnora and later by Alexey Parshchikov.

Muhammed Salih was not a member of the Communist Party.

His political activity began in the mid-1980s in close connection with his literary reformist activity within the Union of Writers of Uzbekistan.

He wrote his first political manifest in December 1984.

The Manifest was aimed against the policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan towards national literature, language and history.

It was signed by 53 young poets and sent to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, known as the "Letter To The Politburo".

The letter criticized the Communist Party as "anti-Uzbek.", Subsequently, Salih published several articles condemning the government's demographic and environmental policies in Uzbekistan.

In 1988 Salih was elected Chairman of the Union of Writers of Uzbekistan thanks to collaboration with the KGB.

At the beginning of Perestroyka Salih became one of the founders of “Birlik” / “Unity”.

In 1989 he founded “Erk” (Freedom) Party.

In 1990 Salih was elected to the Uzbek Supreme Council.

In June 1990 on Erk Party initiative Uzbek Supreme Council adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty of Uzbekistan.

He was the opposition candidate in the 1991 Uzbek presidential election, the first and only time an Uzbek president has faced a serious challenger in an election.

Salih was nominated as a candidate in the first presidential elections in Uzbekistan in December 1991 and was the only rival of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov.

According to the official results Solih received 12.5% of votes, and according to the results announced previously by Uzbekistan Radio he gained 33% and according to the independent observers – the majority of votes.

Most election observers said the elections were neither fair nor democratic.

After the elections the student's demonstrations were put under gunfire, oppositional newspapers were shut down, criminal charges were filed against the leaders of opposition, Secretary of Erk Party Atanazar Arif was detained.

On June 2, 1992 in response to increasing government repression, Salih resigned from his position as the deputy of Oliy Majlis, (Uzbek parliament).

In December 1992 he was accused of foundation of ”Milliy Majlis” and in April 1993 was arrested by an accusation of high treason.

But he was released as a result of international pressure under the written undertaking not to leave Tashkent.

But he managed to run away first to Azerbaijan and later to Turkey.

The Fourth Congress of Erk was held on September 25, 1993 in city of Tashkent without Salih.

The Congress worked under the conditions of strong surveillance by low enforcement structures of the authorities.

However, the Congress succeeded to adopt amendments to the Charter of the Party, to elect the Chairman, Central Council and other leading bodies of the Party.