With the revolutions taking place in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, one international student wants to tell about her home country.
Gandzhina Dustova, a master's student in political science, will be discussing Tajikistan at 4 p.m. in Bracken Library. She is interested in introducing local and international students to her country's history and what it's like today.
"My country was very prosperous and highly developing, and everybody was toward the education and development during the USSR," Dustova said. "The transition from communism into democracy was very hard and violent."
The country suffered five years of civil war after it gained its independence.
"The cost of democratization for Tajikistan particularly was very high and bloody," she said. "The transition was horrible."
She remembers what it was like during this time as a 7-year-old girl.
"Everybody was scared and my parents were so concerned about us," she said. "So many young people were killed and girls were raped and assaulted."
Today the country is growing very slowly, she said.
"Forty-five percent of the population is living under poverty," she said.
In many Central Asian countries, there is a hidden monarchy causing instability and insecurity, she said. There are also many Muslims in the region, resulting in an Islamic threat from opposition parties.
The idea for the presentation came after Dustova took political science professor Gene Frankland's class on West European politics.
"I thought she could help the Ball State community have a better understanding of Central Asia, a region that even educated Americans know virtually nothing about," Frankland said.
Who? Gandzhina Dustova, a student from Tajikistan
What? Focus on Tajikistan in transition: cost of the democratization, government, foreign and domestic policies, stability and security, and other important issues in the country
When? 4 p.m.
Where? Bracken Library, lower level, classroom 1
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