BYGONE DAYS

The venerable Uzbek people originally occupied a vast area ranging from Siberia in the north to Turkistan and Afghanistan in the south. It is well documented in historical and literary sources that we engaged for centuries in a cross-fertilization of economic, cultural and scientific knowledge that moved forward the march of humanity. Unfortunately, either through the vicissitudes of time or through human indifference, since the 1920s artificial boundaries have dampened that give-and- take. This is particularly true in the region of Turkistan where barriers between the peoples of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan persist to this day. And as with our own disjointed and divided la…