Paul Goble
Vienna, May 3 – The dismantling of the Soviet war memorial in central Tallinn continues to reverberate throughout Russia, with most of that country's residents – including Muslims – outraged by Tallinn’s decision and especially by its timing immediately before the May 9th commemoration of the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
But some analysts in Moscow are already seeking to draw broader lessons from the crisis – see, for example, Sergei Markedonov’s essay at http://www.politcom.ru/print.php?id=4517 --and one Muslim analyst there has pointedly warned that Moscow’s current approach in neighboring countries like Estonia not only weakens Russia abroad but undercuts its unity and stability at home.
In an essay posted on the Islam.ru webpage, Muslim Abdulkhakov declares that he shares the outrage of all people of good will toward what the Estonians have done in dismantling the Soviet war memorial, but he adds that Moscow’s approach has led it to fall into a trap set by the West (http://www.islam.ru/pressclub/vslux/isovat/).
According to Abdulkhakov, the United States and Western Europe, instead of advancing their interests directly, use their “petty satellites” to provoke Moscow into reacting in ways that have the effect of reducing Russia’s influence by alienating the countries around the periphery of the Russian Federation.
That allows the U.S. and Western Europe, he continues, to avoid responsibility for what they do, and to weaken Russia without directly challenging it, a step that could backfire on them. Moreover, if their satellites go too far, the Western countries are in a position to back away from them in order to prevent any crisis from getting out of hand.
But there is a more significant aspect of this Western policy Moscow neither fully understands nor is willing and perhaps able to copy, Abdulkhakov writes. While the West has invested in developing alternative pro-Western elites in the countries neighboring Russia and even in Russia itself, Moscow has not.
Indeed, he continues, Moscow’s failure to do so – “there does not exist in any of the neighboring countries that very stratum on which [the Russian government] could rely” to promote Russian interests – combined with its obsession about its image is creating a disaster.
Without such supportive alternative elites in these countries, Moscow must act unilaterally and often in ways that offend not only the countries it hopes to influence but the broader international community as well. And Moscow’s approach in these matters profoundly affects the way those who could be its allies behave as well.
In Estonia, Abdulkhakov writes, the ethnic Russian community instead of accepting “the rules of the game” of politics there, something that would give it a chance to influence Tallinn in ways that would help Moscow, has simply and unproductively “stood in opposition to other Estonians.”
Unfortunately – and this is the crux of Abdulkhakov’s argument – Moscow is not in a position to do much anytime soon. Indeed, its approach to its neighbors mirrors its approach at home, reflecting in both cases a concern about face rather than about achieving its goals.
When potential or actual pro-Western elites in the countries neighboring Russia look West, the Muslim analyst continues, they see regimes that are concerned about them and are interested in protecting the rights and interests of ethnic and religious groups linked to these elites but live abroad.
“With us,” Abdulkhakov says, “everything is just the reverse – as soon as this or that people begins to think about what would be not bad for itself … [Moscow] immediately seeks to put it in its place,” something that elites in the non-Russian countries can readily see.
One of the most important of these groups, he suggests, consists of the Muslims, who form majorities in six of Russia’s neighbors and an increasing fraction of the population of the Russian Federation. When the former see the latter mistreated, they are less inclined to support Moscow.
And when the latter recognize that they are being mistreated or that some in the Russian leadership want to promote a “Third Rome” ideology, then they too react, and Abdulkhakov adds, the Muslims of the Russian Federation will not allow themselves to be driven back to a situation in which they are merely “tolerated.”
Consequently, Abulkhakov argues, the only way out for the Russian authorities is to develop a genuine civil society at home, one in which all citizens are treated equally and to promote its interests abroad not by unilaterally and sometimes brutally insisting upon them but rather by using the tactics the West has used against Moscow.
“It is impossible to catch up and pass a Mercedes on a bicycle even if a world champion is pedaling it,” Abdulkhakov says. “But if one shifts into another Mercedes, then the chances for success are equalized.” Moscow might try something else, he concedes, but given the West’s success, there is no defensible reason for it to do so.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Rift Deepens Between Tatars, North Caucasus Muslims
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 3 – A new article by Tatarstan’s official representative in Moscow, one in which he talks about “the forcible Islamization of the Tatars,” challenges the use of Arabic in Islamic services, and rejects any equation of Tatars and Muslims, has outraged Muslim groups from the North Caucasus.
Nazif Mirikhanov, the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Republic of Tatarstan to Moscow, recently prepared an article entitled “The Tatars and the Mongols.” It has since appeared in numerous newspapers throughout his native Tatarstan and now has been published in the Moscow newspaper, “Tatarskiye novosti.”
In this essay, Mirikhanov speaks of “the forcible Islamization” of the Tatars who, he suggests, were thereby “tethered to the religion” in ways that have held them back as a people and limited their ability to form alliances with other parts of the Turkic world of which they are a part.
Moreover, in remarkably direct language, he denounces the continued use of Arabic in Islamic services, something that has thrown the Tatar and Russian-speaking Tatars “into the clutches of Arabization,” a culture not only different from but entirely alien to their own national traditions.
Not surprisingly, many Muslims in the Russian Federation view such ideas as heretical or worse. And those from the North Caucasus, as represented in the Chechen (but pro-Moscow) NGO, “Russian Islamic Inheritance” have denounced Mirikhanov and called on others to do the same (http://www.islam.ru/rus/2007-05-02/#16201).
To that end, the group’s president, Shavkat Avyasov, has distributed his organization’s critique of Mirikhanov’s essay to “all Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) of the country and to the 48 regional divisions” of the Russian Islamic Inheritance Organization.
(Avyazov told Islam.ru that Russian Islamic Inheritance will publish the responses to its appeal as well as other commentaries on Mirikhanov’s article on the organization’s extensive and, at least among Russia’s Muslims, frequently consulted webpage, http://www.islamnasledie.ru/main.php.)
This back and forth between a secularist Tatar leader and a more religious North Caucasus group may seem relatively unimportant to many outside observers, but there are some important reasons for thinking that Mirikhanov’s article right or wrong is likely to have a major impact on the development of Islam in the Russian Federation.
First, because Mirikhanov is Kazan’s “ambassador,” many in Tatarstan and especially elsewhere will assume that his article reflects not just his views but those of his government. And regardless whether that assumption is correct, it will drive another wedge between the Muslims of the Middle Volga and those of the North Caucasus.
Second, that divide by itself will have some important consequences not all of which Moscow or Kazan are likely to be happy with. On the one hand, it will likely weaken the Muslim community of the Russia Federation by exacerbating a split that has long been percolating just below the surface.
But on the other hand – and this may prove the more significant result – it will reduce the influence of the Kazan moderates in the North Caucasus, thereby opening the way for radicals elsewhere and perhaps even within communities in Tatarstan itself who disagree with Mirikhanov’s modernist course.
And third – and perhaps explains why such an article is appearing now – Mirikhanov’s essay almost certainly undermines the position of Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev within the Muslim umma of the Russian Federation -- even as it increases the longtime Tatar leader’s standing in Moscow and his home republic.
By doing both of these things at the same time, the stakes for Moscow, for Tatarstan, and for Russia’s more than 25 million Muslims in any Kremlin decision about who should replace Shaimiyev and when such a generational change should occur just become a great deal larger.
Vienna, May 3 – A new article by Tatarstan’s official representative in Moscow, one in which he talks about “the forcible Islamization of the Tatars,” challenges the use of Arabic in Islamic services, and rejects any equation of Tatars and Muslims, has outraged Muslim groups from the North Caucasus.
Nazif Mirikhanov, the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Republic of Tatarstan to Moscow, recently prepared an article entitled “The Tatars and the Mongols.” It has since appeared in numerous newspapers throughout his native Tatarstan and now has been published in the Moscow newspaper, “Tatarskiye novosti.”
In this essay, Mirikhanov speaks of “the forcible Islamization” of the Tatars who, he suggests, were thereby “tethered to the religion” in ways that have held them back as a people and limited their ability to form alliances with other parts of the Turkic world of which they are a part.
Moreover, in remarkably direct language, he denounces the continued use of Arabic in Islamic services, something that has thrown the Tatar and Russian-speaking Tatars “into the clutches of Arabization,” a culture not only different from but entirely alien to their own national traditions.
Not surprisingly, many Muslims in the Russian Federation view such ideas as heretical or worse. And those from the North Caucasus, as represented in the Chechen (but pro-Moscow) NGO, “Russian Islamic Inheritance” have denounced Mirikhanov and called on others to do the same (http://www.islam.ru/rus/2007-05-02/#16201).
To that end, the group’s president, Shavkat Avyasov, has distributed his organization’s critique of Mirikhanov’s essay to “all Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) of the country and to the 48 regional divisions” of the Russian Islamic Inheritance Organization.
(Avyazov told Islam.ru that Russian Islamic Inheritance will publish the responses to its appeal as well as other commentaries on Mirikhanov’s article on the organization’s extensive and, at least among Russia’s Muslims, frequently consulted webpage, http://www.islamnasledie.ru/main.php.)
This back and forth between a secularist Tatar leader and a more religious North Caucasus group may seem relatively unimportant to many outside observers, but there are some important reasons for thinking that Mirikhanov’s article right or wrong is likely to have a major impact on the development of Islam in the Russian Federation.
First, because Mirikhanov is Kazan’s “ambassador,” many in Tatarstan and especially elsewhere will assume that his article reflects not just his views but those of his government. And regardless whether that assumption is correct, it will drive another wedge between the Muslims of the Middle Volga and those of the North Caucasus.
Second, that divide by itself will have some important consequences not all of which Moscow or Kazan are likely to be happy with. On the one hand, it will likely weaken the Muslim community of the Russia Federation by exacerbating a split that has long been percolating just below the surface.
But on the other hand – and this may prove the more significant result – it will reduce the influence of the Kazan moderates in the North Caucasus, thereby opening the way for radicals elsewhere and perhaps even within communities in Tatarstan itself who disagree with Mirikhanov’s modernist course.
And third – and perhaps explains why such an article is appearing now – Mirikhanov’s essay almost certainly undermines the position of Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev within the Muslim umma of the Russian Federation -- even as it increases the longtime Tatar leader’s standing in Moscow and his home republic.
By doing both of these things at the same time, the stakes for Moscow, for Tatarstan, and for Russia’s more than 25 million Muslims in any Kremlin decision about who should replace Shaimiyev and when such a generational change should occur just become a great deal larger.
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