CERTAIN WORLD EVENTS, which at first seem obscure, have the peculiar capacity to illuminate the hidden contradictions of world politics. But the glare they produce often confuses most spectators. The collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991 was such an event. So was the uprising in the Uzbek city of Andijan last week.

The situation in Uzbekistan is easily understood: “U” for Ukraine, “stan” for Kyrgyzstan. That is, the peak of the democratization wave in the former Soviet states is reaching Central Asia, where it cannot but intersect with the similar wave in the Muslim world, and where it cannot be obstructed for much longer.