Paul Goble
Vienna, June 26 – Russia today does not have politics in the Western meaning of that word, according to one of Moscow’s leading scholars on political life. And it does not have a political science either, despite the fact that many in both Russia and the West would label the man who made these observations a political scientist.
In an interview posted online last week, Vladimir Pastukhov, a Moscow scholar who earlier outlined what he said politics and political science in Russia should look like (see his articles at http://www.politstudies.ru/arch/authors/481.htm), now says he does not see either in place (http://www.apn.ru/publications/article17284.htm).
Russians “live in a ‘pre-political’ state where the differentiation of state and civil society has not yet taken place and where the state in general has not freed itself completely from society,” Pastukhov argues. As a result, “power relations are not in the end political relations.”
Instead, he argues as have many others, what most call political life in Russia is in fact about “clans and family ties” but are “not political in the narrow sense of this word.” And because that is so, the Moscow scholar insists, there cannot be and is not any genuine political science in the Russian Federation.
Despite that devastating claim, Pastukhov acknowledges that “on the other hand there is a quite interesting and unique Russian political philosophy which among other things has deep roots,” something he said that he does “not consider to be worse” than the existence of a genuine political science.
One example of precisely this “interesting” and “unique” Russian political philosophy was offered by political analyst Aleksandr Kustaryev in an extended essay entitled “England and Scotland” posted on the same APN portal the day after Pastukhov’s interview (http://www.apn.ru/publications/print17294.htm).
In this essay, which draws on both Western political science and the recent experience of the former Soviet space, Kustaryev argues that the Scottish drive toward independence represents the latest manifestation of “post-modern neo-nationalism,” a movement that reflects the needs of politicians to have their own state apparatus rather than a demand of the populations for independence.
As such, he says, “the collapse of Great Britain (if it takes place) will be more like the collapse of the USSR than the collapse of the British Empire in an earlier historical epoch.” Moreover, “Anglo-Scottish relations help us to understand that the end of the USSR was not a belated realization” of the nationalism but something else.
Not only do the two cases point to the importance of elites in this new process, but they suggest, Kustaryev adds, that “the most Scotlanders are in the political establishment in London [and by extension, the more non-Russians in Moscow] the stronger will be the separatist tendencies” among those who did not rise to either.
But the Scottish example also points to something else, the Moscow political writer adds. It shows that the process of devolution is something likely to come in waves rather than be a last act of the political drama, and it indicates that countervailing forces like corporate interests may reverse these trends.
Thus, “the world of sovereign states in this sense is becoming ever more like the world of financial corporations,” which sometimes combine and sometimes divide in response to larger forces of the self-interest of their various elites and their success in pursuing the goals of the latter.
This may not be political science in the Western sense, but it constitutes the kind of insight into politics that almost any political scientist in whatever country would be proud to call his own. Consequently, Pastukhov’s observations are important, but they are no reason to ignore what Moscow writers on politics are producing.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Muslims Face Their Own Sectarian Threat
Paul Goble
Vienna, June 26 – The size of the following that a charismatic but quite possibly mad Soviet-era mufti has gained has so disturbed the leaders of traditional Muslim groups in Russia’s Middle Volga region that they are now working hard to try to block his influence from spreading into their congregations.
Last week, a plenum of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Tatarstan met to discuss how to repulse representatives of the so-called “Faizrakhmanists” who have been turning up at mosques in Kazan and other locations and presenting themselves as representatives of “a new prophet” (http://www.islam.ru/rus/2007-06-20/#16862).
The muftiate of Tatarstan has already spoken out about these groups, officials said. Moreover, it is currently preparing an appeal warning all Muslims there about this ideological threat. And it is now interviewing leading imams about this trend for an upcoming issue of the local paper “Islam-Info.”
The sect consists of the followers of Faizrakhman Sattarov, who in Soviet times was a leading representative of the official Muslim hierarchy. One of the few Muslims from the Middle Volga to graduate from the Bukhara medressa, he served as imam in Leningrad, and Rostov on Don, and in the 1970s was even a deputy mufti in Ufa.
Many of his colleagues at the time concluded that he was psychologically unbalanced, and they were not surprised when he began to create his own personality cult among Muslims in the Middle Volga, even presenting himself as a leader of a new trend in Islam (http://www.islam.ru/lib/warning/sekty/fraizirahmanisty/).
But despite those impressions, by the early 1990s, Sattarov had enough followers and was pursuing a course sufficiently close to what the authorities were prepared to tolerate that he was able to register his group in the city of Kazan, whose government even provided him with land for the construction of a mosque.
One reason for this official sanction is that Sattarov presented himself as a committed democrat, someone whose own organization would have its leaders chosen by the vote of believers. But that turned out to be more an ideological pose than a real commitment.
At the time of the first election, Sattarov lost to Yunus Yarullin and then decided to do whatever he had to do to force Yarullin out, including denouncing him as an apostate, and to occupy the top spot for himself as he had earlier at the end of Soviet times.
Many of so-called Faizrakhmanists deserted him as a result, but Sattarov continued to preach his own pastiche of Islamic and non-Islamic ideas, ranging from a rejection of the Hanafi legal school to an assertion that he is among the 34th generation of descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.
Over time, the Islam.ru commentary suggests, Sattarov’s views have evolved. Initially, he posed as a defender of the Koran and Sunna, but more recently, he has been issuing his own “samizdat”-style brochures laying out positions on various issues without much reference to basic Muslim texts.
Self-styled Muslim leaders like Sattarov still have a relatively easy time reaching out to the Islamic community of the Russian Federation, whose members are often poorly informed on Islamic issues because of the seven decades of Communist anti-religious campaigns.
Faizrakhman Sattarov probably does not pose a serious ideological threat because he strikes so many who have come into contact with him as fundamentally incompetent. But the Muslim leadership there is worried lest he, either on his own or on behalf of Russian officials opposed to Islam, undermines the unity of their community.
Vienna, June 26 – The size of the following that a charismatic but quite possibly mad Soviet-era mufti has gained has so disturbed the leaders of traditional Muslim groups in Russia’s Middle Volga region that they are now working hard to try to block his influence from spreading into their congregations.
Last week, a plenum of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Tatarstan met to discuss how to repulse representatives of the so-called “Faizrakhmanists” who have been turning up at mosques in Kazan and other locations and presenting themselves as representatives of “a new prophet” (http://www.islam.ru/rus/2007-06-20/#16862).
The muftiate of Tatarstan has already spoken out about these groups, officials said. Moreover, it is currently preparing an appeal warning all Muslims there about this ideological threat. And it is now interviewing leading imams about this trend for an upcoming issue of the local paper “Islam-Info.”
The sect consists of the followers of Faizrakhman Sattarov, who in Soviet times was a leading representative of the official Muslim hierarchy. One of the few Muslims from the Middle Volga to graduate from the Bukhara medressa, he served as imam in Leningrad, and Rostov on Don, and in the 1970s was even a deputy mufti in Ufa.
Many of his colleagues at the time concluded that he was psychologically unbalanced, and they were not surprised when he began to create his own personality cult among Muslims in the Middle Volga, even presenting himself as a leader of a new trend in Islam (http://www.islam.ru/lib/warning/sekty/fraizirahmanisty/).
But despite those impressions, by the early 1990s, Sattarov had enough followers and was pursuing a course sufficiently close to what the authorities were prepared to tolerate that he was able to register his group in the city of Kazan, whose government even provided him with land for the construction of a mosque.
One reason for this official sanction is that Sattarov presented himself as a committed democrat, someone whose own organization would have its leaders chosen by the vote of believers. But that turned out to be more an ideological pose than a real commitment.
At the time of the first election, Sattarov lost to Yunus Yarullin and then decided to do whatever he had to do to force Yarullin out, including denouncing him as an apostate, and to occupy the top spot for himself as he had earlier at the end of Soviet times.
Many of so-called Faizrakhmanists deserted him as a result, but Sattarov continued to preach his own pastiche of Islamic and non-Islamic ideas, ranging from a rejection of the Hanafi legal school to an assertion that he is among the 34th generation of descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.
Over time, the Islam.ru commentary suggests, Sattarov’s views have evolved. Initially, he posed as a defender of the Koran and Sunna, but more recently, he has been issuing his own “samizdat”-style brochures laying out positions on various issues without much reference to basic Muslim texts.
Self-styled Muslim leaders like Sattarov still have a relatively easy time reaching out to the Islamic community of the Russian Federation, whose members are often poorly informed on Islamic issues because of the seven decades of Communist anti-religious campaigns.
Faizrakhman Sattarov probably does not pose a serious ideological threat because he strikes so many who have come into contact with him as fundamentally incompetent. But the Muslim leadership there is worried lest he, either on his own or on behalf of Russian officials opposed to Islam, undermines the unity of their community.
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