Islam Karimov was such a happy and contented Communist Party leader that, when his domain inconveniently became the independent republic of Uzbekistan in 1991, he simply took all the trappings of Soviet Communism--one-party rule, state control of the press, secret surveillance of the populace, five-year plans, government monopolization of the means of production--and converted them, lock, stock and political prison, into a well-oiled banana republic--or, to speak more properly, a cotton republic, since Uzbekistan was completely denuded and environmentally destroyed during its decades as the designated cotton supplier to the rest of the USSR.
Of course, there were little niggling problems for Karimov. He had to get a new flag. He had to invent a new name for the KGB. (He settled on National Security Service.) He had to learn Uzbek, since that's what some of the natives actually speak. He had to take the oath of office with one hand on the Quran and one hand on the new democratic constitution, which must have thoroughly revolted him since, in the intervening 13 years, he's never actually paid attention to either one.
You would think at some point he would have changed his first name, since he believes that most Islamists are threats to civilization and, more to the point, to his own life. But since the country is 86 percent Muslim, he's got that General Custer feeling in the pit of his stomach all the time. He deals with it by forcing all mosques to be approved by the state. Anyone caught worshipping at home (the official charge is being "too pious"), or praying in public (he forbids the mosques to broadcast the call to prayer), or wearing a beard (the symbol of what he inevitably calls "Wahhabism"), is subject to summary arrest and interrogation.
