Wealth & Money Quote by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

“National unity” is doing double duty here: it’s an emotional ideal and a policy instrument. Tokayev frames cohesion as “priceless wealth”, a choice that turns politics into stewardship. If unity is the nation’s most valuable asset, then dissent, fragmentation, or even loud pluralism can be cast not as democratic noise but as economic vandalism. The metaphor is tidy, modern, and managerial: good leaders protect assets; responsible citizens don’t devalue them.

The second clause tightens the message. Calling unity a “solid foundation for our statehood” signals anxiety about the state itself, not just social harmony. Kazakhstan is a relatively young, multiethnic country with a long border beside a revisionist Russia that has repeatedly used the language of protecting “compatriots” to justify pressure and war. In that environment, “statehood” isn’t abstract; it’s a reminder that sovereignty must be continually reinforced at home to be credible abroad.

The intent reads as both reassurance and instruction. Reassurance, because it offers a simple story of stability: we are united, therefore we endure. Instruction, because it implies a hierarchy of values: unity first, everything else after. That ordering conveniently underwrites a familiar post-Soviet governing logic - managed politics, centralized authority, and intolerance for movements that threaten the “foundation”.

It works rhetorically because it’s hard to argue with and easy to weaponize. Who wants to be against unity, or against the state? The elegance is also the risk: when unity becomes sacred, it can become a pretext for narrowing the space where a nation actually negotiates its differences.