Paul Goble
Vienna, May 16 – Hundreds, if not thousands, of ethnic Russians have converted to Islam over the last two decades, a trend that infuriates many Orthodox Christians, encourages many members of traditional Muslim nationalities, and leaves the new Russian Muslims in what is sometimes a difficult situation.
There are no reliable statistics about exactly how many ethnic Russian Muslims there are. The Orthodox Church routinely argues that there are no more than 200 to 300. Most academic specialists say the number is in the range of 2,000 to 3,000. But some Muslim activists suggest there may be as many as 20,000 in all.
But controversy concerning Russian Muslims involves other questions as well, including What leads ethnic Russians to convert to Islam? What does a “typical” Russian Muslim look like? What obstacles do Russian Muslims have to overcome? What trends in Islam do they follow? And how do they fit into the broader Muslim community?
Now, four prominent converts to Islam – journalist Fatima (Anastasia) Yezhova, writer Fatima (Viktoriya) Veber, former priest Ali (Vyacheslav) Pogosin, and Kharum Ar-Rushi (Vadim Sidorov), head of the National Organization of Russian Muslims – have shared their answers to these questions.
Their views are summarized in an article by Kazan journalist Dilyara Rakhimova (http://www.islamonline.ru/m/nov/?I=2429) and will be amplified in a book entitled “[Ethnic] Russians in Islam” that Fatima Veber, the wife of the head of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Karelia, is currently completing.
First, what leads ethnic Russians to convert to Islam? According to these converts, many Russian women convert because they have married Muslims or have Muslim friends. Many men and women do so after being inspired by the actions of Muslims, by the beauty of Muslim texts or as a result of developments in the Muslim world.
And still other Russians, Fatima Yezhova argues, do so because they decide that “Islam as the best path of saving [their homeland] from alcoholism and moral degradation” or because they feel “constant discomfort” with life around them and are searching for answers that neither secular society nor their own church provides.
Second, what does a “typical” Russian Muslim look like? “It is not difficult to draw a portrait of a typical ‘average’ Russian Muslim” because most of the newly converted come from a specific age group and educational background, the converts agreed, although they admitted “there are of course exceptions.”
Typically, they said, the new Russian Muslim is young, aged 15 to 35, at university or already a graduate, and an active participant in many aspects of life around him. And the “typical” convert is likely to say that he was first attracted to Islam by television programs, books and films, even when the latter are critical of Islam.
Third, what obstacles do Russian Muslims have to overcome? Russians who convert often face opposition from family and friends and discrimination in the broader society, the four converts say. Rakhimova begins her article by quoting from an Internet posting that makes this point.
“If I were to decide to start smoking or to organize a striptease club at work, most likely this would not elicit any reaction from my relatives,” a young Muslim convert from Voronezh wrote.”But Islam! Islam is associated only with terrorism, the denigration of women… [And if] a son adopts Islam, this is understood as a form of stupidity or the result of the influence of Arabs who dream of making everyone a Muslim and recruiting them for terrorism.”
Such difficulties are not unexpected, but there is another, Fatima Yezhova reports, that is often ignored. That is the impact on converts of Russian culture itself, a culture that rejects bourgeois limitations and orderliness and thus encourages some of its members to go from one extreme to another.
Indeed, she continues, it sometimes happens that ethnic Russian Muslims convert back if they face difficulties or if everything is not as they expected, something that almost never happens with “ethnic Muslims” who then begin to take their religion more seriously.
Fourth, what trends in Islam do they follow, initially and late on? Reflecting these cultural predispositions, Fatima Veber says, sometimes means that “at the beginning of their path in Islam, Russians if they are firmly convinced in their faith become a little extremist” in their views.”
“They may fall into extremist groupings” just as often as they may leave Islam altogether, something that contributes to their image as the new Janissaries but also encourages Orthodox Christian activists to demonize Islam and to put particular social pressures on new Russian Muslims.
But ethnic Russian Muslims who continue in the faith for some time seldom remain extremists, the converts say. As they learn more about Islam, they tend to become more moderate. As a result, they then are found across the entire spectrum of beliefs and attitudes that are typical of all other Muslims around them.
And fifth, how do they fit into the broader Muslim community? The National Organization of Russian Muslims (NORM) seeks to integrate the new ethnic Russian Muslims into the broader Muslim community so that their most important identity is primarily but not exclusively religious.
That is not always easy, NORM’s Kharum Ar-Rushi says, because sometimes the new converts then deny their ethnic identity rather than integrate it with their new faith. There is no reason, he continues, that one cannot be both Russian and a Muslim, whatever many Russians and even many Russian converts to Islam may feel.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Window on Eurasia: What a Public Advisory Committee Does for the FSB
Paul Goble
Vienna, May 16 – Like several other Russian ministries and agencies, the Federal Security Service has created a 15-member public advisory committee that the FSB says will enhance “society’s control over the activity of the security organs” and thereby protect “the constitutional rights and freedoms of Russian Federation citizens.”
But this new organization, which will convene for the first time tomorrow, is unlikely to play that role. Indeed, one commentator has suggested that Russian “society does not need such a council.” But Andrei Soldatov adds, the FSB will find its existence extremely useful in at least three ways (http://www.ej.ru/comments/entry/7029/).
First, the Moscow commentator says, the new body will allow the FSB to portray itself, however falsely, as fundamentally different from Soviet and Russian security agencies in the past, as an institution that is fully prepared to work with parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations and religious groups.
Second, he continues, the new group will provide yet another means for the FSB to coordinate, guide and even dominate groups that it has not yet succeeded in fully subordinating to itself and the regime and to do so under the more acceptable guise of cooperation and disclosure.
And third – and Soldatov suggests this may be the most important thing the FSB will get from forming this new body – the advisory committee will provide a forum in which what the FSB’s Nikolai Patrushev has called “the ‘new nobility’ of chekists” can express their views on a broader range of political issues than ever before.
Whether Soldatov’s analysis turns out to be correct, of course, remains to be seen, although recent trends in Russian statecraft make it likely. And while most Russian politicians were more optimistic (see a survey at http://www.regions.ru/news/2074919/), even many of them were skeptical.
Viktor Ozerov, the head of the Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee, was one of the enthusiasts. He suggested that this council not only would promote “greater openness of military and force structures, about which Vladimir Putin has spoken, but also [contribute to] the development of civil society in the country.”
But Viktor Ilyukhin, the deputy chairman of the Duma’s Security Committee, was far less enthusiastic. He told the journalists that this new advisory committee is the latest “gift to the fashion” of creating such institutions and given the imperatives of secrecy in intelligence work, it would be little more than an empty “talk shop.”
As of now, the FSB has named 12 of the 15 members, and they include not only six parliamentarians but the rector of MGIMO (Moscow’s principle training center for future diplomats), a senior vice president of the Foreign Trade Bank, and the past of the Russian Orthodox Church that provides services for FSB headquarters, the Lubyanka.
None of these is likely to press the FSB very hard. Indeed, most work for institutions with which the FSB has long had close relations. And the three not yet named publicly may be retired FSB officers, something that will give the security service itself even greater control over any oversight (http://www.lenta.ru/articles/2007/05/15/os/).
And as could have been predicted in advance however ineffective this body may turn out to be, many left out are angry. A news report on the Islam.ru website today, for example, complained that no faith except Russian Orthodoxy was represented, something the site’s writers suggested was a huge mistake given the interests of the other groups.
But perhaps the clearest indication that the formation of this body is more decorative than real is the following: However much attention the FSB is supposed to be giving to its advisory body, the FSB’s own website (http://www.fsb.ru) has not yet posted anything about it.
Vienna, May 16 – Like several other Russian ministries and agencies, the Federal Security Service has created a 15-member public advisory committee that the FSB says will enhance “society’s control over the activity of the security organs” and thereby protect “the constitutional rights and freedoms of Russian Federation citizens.”
But this new organization, which will convene for the first time tomorrow, is unlikely to play that role. Indeed, one commentator has suggested that Russian “society does not need such a council.” But Andrei Soldatov adds, the FSB will find its existence extremely useful in at least three ways (http://www.ej.ru/comments/entry/7029/).
First, the Moscow commentator says, the new body will allow the FSB to portray itself, however falsely, as fundamentally different from Soviet and Russian security agencies in the past, as an institution that is fully prepared to work with parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations and religious groups.
Second, he continues, the new group will provide yet another means for the FSB to coordinate, guide and even dominate groups that it has not yet succeeded in fully subordinating to itself and the regime and to do so under the more acceptable guise of cooperation and disclosure.
And third – and Soldatov suggests this may be the most important thing the FSB will get from forming this new body – the advisory committee will provide a forum in which what the FSB’s Nikolai Patrushev has called “the ‘new nobility’ of chekists” can express their views on a broader range of political issues than ever before.
Whether Soldatov’s analysis turns out to be correct, of course, remains to be seen, although recent trends in Russian statecraft make it likely. And while most Russian politicians were more optimistic (see a survey at http://www.regions.ru/news/2074919/), even many of them were skeptical.
Viktor Ozerov, the head of the Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee, was one of the enthusiasts. He suggested that this council not only would promote “greater openness of military and force structures, about which Vladimir Putin has spoken, but also [contribute to] the development of civil society in the country.”
But Viktor Ilyukhin, the deputy chairman of the Duma’s Security Committee, was far less enthusiastic. He told the journalists that this new advisory committee is the latest “gift to the fashion” of creating such institutions and given the imperatives of secrecy in intelligence work, it would be little more than an empty “talk shop.”
As of now, the FSB has named 12 of the 15 members, and they include not only six parliamentarians but the rector of MGIMO (Moscow’s principle training center for future diplomats), a senior vice president of the Foreign Trade Bank, and the past of the Russian Orthodox Church that provides services for FSB headquarters, the Lubyanka.
None of these is likely to press the FSB very hard. Indeed, most work for institutions with which the FSB has long had close relations. And the three not yet named publicly may be retired FSB officers, something that will give the security service itself even greater control over any oversight (http://www.lenta.ru/articles/2007/05/15/os/).
And as could have been predicted in advance however ineffective this body may turn out to be, many left out are angry. A news report on the Islam.ru website today, for example, complained that no faith except Russian Orthodoxy was represented, something the site’s writers suggested was a huge mistake given the interests of the other groups.
But perhaps the clearest indication that the formation of this body is more decorative than real is the following: However much attention the FSB is supposed to be giving to its advisory body, the FSB’s own website (http://www.fsb.ru) has not yet posted anything about it.
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