Paul Goble
Staunton, September 30 – With the Tatarstan State Council’s decision last week to make both the Day of the Acceptance of Islam and Uraza-Bayram official holidays, the number of republic holidays linked to Islam now exceeds secular ones there three to two, a measure of the growing importance of Islam in that Middle Volga republic.
In a comment on this trend, A.Yu. Khabutdinov, a professor of the Kazan branch of the Russian Academy of Jurisprudence, provides details on how this remarkable development came about and about what it means and equally doesn’t mean for the Muslims of Tatarstan and of the Russian Federation more generally (www.islamrf.ru/news/analytics/expert/13740/).
On September 23, he notes, the Tatarstan State council approved two new holidays for the republic which will be days off for most residents: the Day of the Official Adoption of Islam by Volga Bulgaria in 922 and the Muslim Uraza-Bayram holiday. Kurban Bayram had already been a state holiday since the 1990s.
But now that there are three Muslim-related republic holidays, the Kazan scholar continues, they outnumber the two “secular” ones – the Day of the Republic which is also celebrated in Kazan as the Day of the City and the Day of the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan.
In the 1990s, Khabutdinov recalls, Tatar leaders sought to declare the day of the Russian occupation of Kazan in October 1552 a state holiday, a holiday that would have commemorated a national defeat in much the say way that the Soviet calendar included such “black dates” as the fall of the Paris commune in 1871.
But the supporters of this idea failed. They were not even able to erect a monument to the defenders of Kazan in 1552 under that city’s Kremlin or, an equally passionate cause among Kazan Tatar nationalists at the time, a monument to the founder of the Kazan khanate, Olug Muhammad.
Thus, Khabutdinov says, in the 1990s, the Tatars focused on national symbols. But “in the first decade of the 2000s, the basic accent was shifted to the religious component,” with the opening of the Kul-Sharif mosque in the Kazan Kremlin and the celebration of Russia’s entrance into the Organization of the Islamic Conference as an observer.
The next shift came the spring of 2010 when, already under the current Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, the question was raised about how Tatarstan should respond to the new federal holiday, the Day of the Baptism of Rus, and many Tatars argued that Kazan should adopt the Day of the Adoption of Islam.
Up until that time, religious organizations like the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of Tatarstan had been the chief advocates of such a move. “However,” Khabutdinov notes, “none of these institutions has the right to propose legislation.” That came from the Tatarstan State Council which on June 9 proposed that the Russian Duma take that step.
At that time, Mintimir Shaymiyev, the former president of the republic and current state advisor, said that “if the State Duma rejects the initiative of the State council then the parliament of Tatarstan can establish this day as a memorial day in the republic,” a prescient description of what in fact happened.
The problem Moscow faced in this regard was two-fold. On the one hand, many Russians objected to the idea that there should be any but an Orthodox holiday of this kind. And on the other, the Muslim communities of the country are divided as to when a holiday commemorating the adoption of Islam should take place.
Daghestani scholars and officials insisted that Islam arrived in their republic in 642, much earlier than in the arrival of Islam in the Middle Volga. Intriguingly, Khabutdinov says, the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR) backed the Tatars, arguing that the Muslims in the Caucasus did not have a state at the time but “the Bulgars did.”
Other Muslims in the Russian Federation don’t agree with the SMR’s logic and continue to present “their own particular history” separately in contrast to what the Tatar leadership had hoped for. But that is far from the most important consequence of what the Tatarstan State Council did last week, Khabutdinov says.
“From the end of the 1980s” until last week, he writes, “the Kazan khanate was considered the symbol of the unity of the Tatar nation” -- even though many Tatar nationalists of a century ago had extremely negative views about that political institution. But now, the nation’s “golden age” is the epoch of the Volga or Volga-Kama Bulgaria and its adoption of Islam.
That change in the understanding of the past both reflects and is certain to have an impact on the nature of Tatar national identity and nationalism in the future, a fact far more important than the appearance of yet another “religious” rather than “secular” “red day” on the calendars of the people of that Middle Volga republic.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Islamist Radicalism in Central Asia Now Threatens Europe, Experts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 30 – Many in the West have watched with alarm on the growth of Islamist violence in post-Soviet Central Asia, but most of them have concluded that its horrors are far away. Now, however, three experts are warning that this violence now poses a growing threat not only to the region but to Europe as well.
The three -- Tomasz Otłowski of Poland, Aleksandr Knyazev of the Russian Federation, and Marlene Laruelle of France – approach this issue from different perspectives but reach the same disturbing conclusion: Europe and the West more generally need to view Islamist radicalism in Central Asia as a problem that can reach Europe in the near future.
In an essay posted on "Wirtualna Polska,” Otłowski, who works as an analyst at the Bureau of National Security of Poland, argues that “Islamic radicalism in Central Asia is a growing problem” and that it is directly connected with the situation in Afghanistan and a threat to European countries (www.centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1285821060).
The activity of the Islamists is especially great in Tajikistan, “the poorest and weakest state” of Central Asia, Otłowski says. The other Central Asian states have been more effective in combating this ideological group, but that is beginning to change not only because the ethnic groups are so intermixed in the Fergana valley but also because of high unemployment.
Many unemployed young men are completely “frustrated” with their chances for the future, the Polish analyst argues, and consequently, they find an explanation for their problems and a guide to future action in “the radical variant of Islam which” Al-Qaeda and its representatives offer them.
As a result, he continues, “nowhere in Central Asia does the idea of jihad have as many supporters as in the Ferghana valley,” a place that has been a focus of attention by Al-Qaeda operatives since the end of the 1990s. And it was out of them that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) arose.
The IMU recruited its members in the Ferghana and “dispatched them for preparation in the Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan or in the Pakistani tribal territories.” The Uzbek government’s harsh campaign drove the IMU out of much of that country, but many IMU activists resettled in Pakistan’s Northern Waziristan, “a bastion today of Uzbek Islamists.”
There, along with other Islamist groups, the IMU has “not only more or less formally declared its subordination to Al-Qaeda (in both the ideological and organizational-cadres sense) but also begun to declare its interests in the globalization of its goals and activities,” a hallmark of Al-Qaeda throughout its history.
The IMU and other groups have used their “close ties with Al-Qaeda” to increase their operational possibilities and to broaden “the geography of their activity,” a development that is “useful to Al-Qaeda itself since the grouping provides additional forces and means for planning and conducting broad-scale operations” around the world.
“One of the first organizations” from Central Asia which adopted Al-Qaeda’s worldwide jihadist line was the Union of Islamic Jihad (UIJ), which consists of many activists who were part of the IMU. And the UIJ is now playing a major role for Al-Qaeda not only in Central Asia but in Europe and even the United States.
For Al-Qaeda, Otłowski writes, this focus on Central Asia is entirely understandable. Central Asia for that group, he says, is “a litmus test” of what may be possible. “Countries lying in the heart of the Asian continent with a predominant Muslim population and domestic problems are the ideal starting bases for further operations especially against Russia and China.”
But the UIJ is interested in attacking Europe as well, the Polish analyst says. It has already developed a network in Turkey and in Germany, both among local Muslims, recent Muslim converts, and especially those who have had experience in the fighting in Afghanistan or elsewhere.
“Without a doubt,” Otłowski argues, “it is only a question of time when the UIJ structures will focus on Europe” and launch attacks there. Germany and Turkey are particularly at risk, and UIJ is actively recruiting people who have little interest in what is taking place in Central Asia but a great desire to attack the West in the name of jihad.
Meanwhile, in Almaaty earlier this week, Aleksandr Knyazev of Moscow and Marlene Laruelle of Paris and Washington discussed what they call “the new arc of instability” from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and the ways in which Islamist radicals in each of those countries are linked with one another (www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6745).
Among other comments, they provided support for Otłowski’s argument with their discussions of the “reincarnation” of the IMU and its growing activity in the northeastern provinces of Afghanistan and renewal of activity in the countries of Central Asia from which its members had earlier been pushed out.
This activity, the two stressed, is linked to the flow of drugs and the links of these radical Islamist groups to organized crime in many countries, factors that, along with their experiences in Afghanistan and Pakistan, also prompt the members of the IMU and the UIJ to look beyond their national communities and think in radical jihadist terms of the Al-Qaeda type.
Staunton, September 30 – Many in the West have watched with alarm on the growth of Islamist violence in post-Soviet Central Asia, but most of them have concluded that its horrors are far away. Now, however, three experts are warning that this violence now poses a growing threat not only to the region but to Europe as well.
The three -- Tomasz Otłowski of Poland, Aleksandr Knyazev of the Russian Federation, and Marlene Laruelle of France – approach this issue from different perspectives but reach the same disturbing conclusion: Europe and the West more generally need to view Islamist radicalism in Central Asia as a problem that can reach Europe in the near future.
In an essay posted on "Wirtualna Polska,” Otłowski, who works as an analyst at the Bureau of National Security of Poland, argues that “Islamic radicalism in Central Asia is a growing problem” and that it is directly connected with the situation in Afghanistan and a threat to European countries (www.centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1285821060).
The activity of the Islamists is especially great in Tajikistan, “the poorest and weakest state” of Central Asia, Otłowski says. The other Central Asian states have been more effective in combating this ideological group, but that is beginning to change not only because the ethnic groups are so intermixed in the Fergana valley but also because of high unemployment.
Many unemployed young men are completely “frustrated” with their chances for the future, the Polish analyst argues, and consequently, they find an explanation for their problems and a guide to future action in “the radical variant of Islam which” Al-Qaeda and its representatives offer them.
As a result, he continues, “nowhere in Central Asia does the idea of jihad have as many supporters as in the Ferghana valley,” a place that has been a focus of attention by Al-Qaeda operatives since the end of the 1990s. And it was out of them that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) arose.
The IMU recruited its members in the Ferghana and “dispatched them for preparation in the Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan or in the Pakistani tribal territories.” The Uzbek government’s harsh campaign drove the IMU out of much of that country, but many IMU activists resettled in Pakistan’s Northern Waziristan, “a bastion today of Uzbek Islamists.”
There, along with other Islamist groups, the IMU has “not only more or less formally declared its subordination to Al-Qaeda (in both the ideological and organizational-cadres sense) but also begun to declare its interests in the globalization of its goals and activities,” a hallmark of Al-Qaeda throughout its history.
The IMU and other groups have used their “close ties with Al-Qaeda” to increase their operational possibilities and to broaden “the geography of their activity,” a development that is “useful to Al-Qaeda itself since the grouping provides additional forces and means for planning and conducting broad-scale operations” around the world.
“One of the first organizations” from Central Asia which adopted Al-Qaeda’s worldwide jihadist line was the Union of Islamic Jihad (UIJ), which consists of many activists who were part of the IMU. And the UIJ is now playing a major role for Al-Qaeda not only in Central Asia but in Europe and even the United States.
For Al-Qaeda, Otłowski writes, this focus on Central Asia is entirely understandable. Central Asia for that group, he says, is “a litmus test” of what may be possible. “Countries lying in the heart of the Asian continent with a predominant Muslim population and domestic problems are the ideal starting bases for further operations especially against Russia and China.”
But the UIJ is interested in attacking Europe as well, the Polish analyst says. It has already developed a network in Turkey and in Germany, both among local Muslims, recent Muslim converts, and especially those who have had experience in the fighting in Afghanistan or elsewhere.
“Without a doubt,” Otłowski argues, “it is only a question of time when the UIJ structures will focus on Europe” and launch attacks there. Germany and Turkey are particularly at risk, and UIJ is actively recruiting people who have little interest in what is taking place in Central Asia but a great desire to attack the West in the name of jihad.
Meanwhile, in Almaaty earlier this week, Aleksandr Knyazev of Moscow and Marlene Laruelle of Paris and Washington discussed what they call “the new arc of instability” from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and the ways in which Islamist radicals in each of those countries are linked with one another (www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6745).
Among other comments, they provided support for Otłowski’s argument with their discussions of the “reincarnation” of the IMU and its growing activity in the northeastern provinces of Afghanistan and renewal of activity in the countries of Central Asia from which its members had earlier been pushed out.
This activity, the two stressed, is linked to the flow of drugs and the links of these radical Islamist groups to organized crime in many countries, factors that, along with their experiences in Afghanistan and Pakistan, also prompt the members of the IMU and the UIJ to look beyond their national communities and think in radical jihadist terms of the Al-Qaeda type.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Underfunds Budget for Compatriots Program by More than 75 Percent
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 30 – Moscow spent less than a quarter of the amount it had budgeted to attract compatriots living abroad to come back to Russia, some 1.8 billion rubles (60 million US dollars) instead of eight billion rubles (260 million US dollars), a cutback that reflects Russia’s economic problems but reduces the chance that Moscow will attract many to return.
That has two major consequences. On the one hand, it means that an increasing share of the growing influx of migrant workers to the Russian Federation this year and in the future will consist of non-Russians culturally dissimilar from the titular nationality, a trend certain to exacerbate inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions there.
And on the other, this cutback means that Moscow will likely be playing a smaller role in the lives of the ethnic Russian communities of the former Soviet republics and Baltic states, despite the claims of ethnic Russian activists in those countries and the desire of some Russian nationalists to use ethnic Russian communities there to promote closer ties.
In reporting this development, Aleksandr Raskin, the deputy chief editor of “Expert Online,” argues that these cutbacks put the entire program at risk, even though officials like Federal Migration Service chief Konstantin Poltoranin insist that this reduction “does not mean the liquidation of the program” (www.expert.ru/articles/2010/09/29/krizisn_sootechestvenniki/).
According to FMS officials, Raskin continues, their institution asked for the reductions because its analysts concluded that no more than 20,000 people would move to the Russian Federation, far fewer than many Moscow officials and politicians had been projecting only a few years ago.
When the program was designed for the period 2007 to 2012, officials projected that 132,400 people would return – others suggested that as many as 300,000 would do so, Raskin notes -- but in fact only 8800 have done so thus far despite budgetary allocations totally 18.3 billion rubles (600 million US dollars).
Over the last several years, Russian officials have sought to promote in-migration of compatriots to economically weak regions rather than to Moscow or other major cities by offering more money to those prepared to move to the former and much less to those who want to go to the latter.
While FMS officials continue to be upbeat, many other parts of the bureaucracy are not. Igor Lyakin-Frolov, the deputy director of the Foreign Ministry’s information department, for example, told Raskin that “the program is really ineffective.” He added that various ministries, including his own, are discussing how to transform it.
FMS officials acknowledge that there are problems, including their inability to guarantee those who return that they will have appropriate housing. Doing that depends on the regions, and some of them are not very helpful. Moscow’s role is limited, they say, to ensuring that those who return obtain Russian Federation citizenship on an expedited basis.
Independent analysts, Raskin continues, are very skeptical about the program, with some arguing that Moscow hasn’t supported it adequately and others saying it is poorly designed. Dmitry Oreshkin, a political scientist, says that Moscow should have addressed this issue 15 or more years ago when many more ethnic Russians were interested in moving.
During the early 1990s, he points out, Russia absorbed up to a million compatriots each year because “people were fleeing from real threats” in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Russia did not treat these people especially well with regards to housing and employment, but at the same time, it did not ignore them either.
The situation changed in the mid-1990s. Local and regional officials were less interested in taking in the large number of professionals for whom there were no obvious jobs. And many in Moscow “began to think that a return to the USSR was possible” and that the continued presence of ethnic Russians in the former republics would help promote that.
Guram Sanikidze, former deputy director of the Russian bureau of the International Migration Organization, is more skeptical than most of the Russian analysts. He suggests that people are not going to move to Russia -- “they do not have money for that” – and that as a result, “the program is condemned to failure.”
The amount of money, now reduced still further, is not enough to meet the nearly one million rubles (33,000 US dollars) a family needs to make the move, Sanikidze says. The amount Moscow is offering is thus “a drop in the bucket” and won’t convince all but the most frightened to move.
Instead, he concludes, “this is a propaganda program, used by the administration of Vladimir Putin as one of the aspects of the pre-election presidential race which is beginning now in Russia.” It may make for good public relations, but it is not something likely to have the consequences Moscow says it hopes for on the ground.
Staunton, September 30 – Moscow spent less than a quarter of the amount it had budgeted to attract compatriots living abroad to come back to Russia, some 1.8 billion rubles (60 million US dollars) instead of eight billion rubles (260 million US dollars), a cutback that reflects Russia’s economic problems but reduces the chance that Moscow will attract many to return.
That has two major consequences. On the one hand, it means that an increasing share of the growing influx of migrant workers to the Russian Federation this year and in the future will consist of non-Russians culturally dissimilar from the titular nationality, a trend certain to exacerbate inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions there.
And on the other, this cutback means that Moscow will likely be playing a smaller role in the lives of the ethnic Russian communities of the former Soviet republics and Baltic states, despite the claims of ethnic Russian activists in those countries and the desire of some Russian nationalists to use ethnic Russian communities there to promote closer ties.
In reporting this development, Aleksandr Raskin, the deputy chief editor of “Expert Online,” argues that these cutbacks put the entire program at risk, even though officials like Federal Migration Service chief Konstantin Poltoranin insist that this reduction “does not mean the liquidation of the program” (www.expert.ru/articles/2010/09/29/krizisn_sootechestvenniki/).
According to FMS officials, Raskin continues, their institution asked for the reductions because its analysts concluded that no more than 20,000 people would move to the Russian Federation, far fewer than many Moscow officials and politicians had been projecting only a few years ago.
When the program was designed for the period 2007 to 2012, officials projected that 132,400 people would return – others suggested that as many as 300,000 would do so, Raskin notes -- but in fact only 8800 have done so thus far despite budgetary allocations totally 18.3 billion rubles (600 million US dollars).
Over the last several years, Russian officials have sought to promote in-migration of compatriots to economically weak regions rather than to Moscow or other major cities by offering more money to those prepared to move to the former and much less to those who want to go to the latter.
While FMS officials continue to be upbeat, many other parts of the bureaucracy are not. Igor Lyakin-Frolov, the deputy director of the Foreign Ministry’s information department, for example, told Raskin that “the program is really ineffective.” He added that various ministries, including his own, are discussing how to transform it.
FMS officials acknowledge that there are problems, including their inability to guarantee those who return that they will have appropriate housing. Doing that depends on the regions, and some of them are not very helpful. Moscow’s role is limited, they say, to ensuring that those who return obtain Russian Federation citizenship on an expedited basis.
Independent analysts, Raskin continues, are very skeptical about the program, with some arguing that Moscow hasn’t supported it adequately and others saying it is poorly designed. Dmitry Oreshkin, a political scientist, says that Moscow should have addressed this issue 15 or more years ago when many more ethnic Russians were interested in moving.
During the early 1990s, he points out, Russia absorbed up to a million compatriots each year because “people were fleeing from real threats” in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Russia did not treat these people especially well with regards to housing and employment, but at the same time, it did not ignore them either.
The situation changed in the mid-1990s. Local and regional officials were less interested in taking in the large number of professionals for whom there were no obvious jobs. And many in Moscow “began to think that a return to the USSR was possible” and that the continued presence of ethnic Russians in the former republics would help promote that.
Guram Sanikidze, former deputy director of the Russian bureau of the International Migration Organization, is more skeptical than most of the Russian analysts. He suggests that people are not going to move to Russia -- “they do not have money for that” – and that as a result, “the program is condemned to failure.”
The amount of money, now reduced still further, is not enough to meet the nearly one million rubles (33,000 US dollars) a family needs to make the move, Sanikidze says. The amount Moscow is offering is thus “a drop in the bucket” and won’t convince all but the most frightened to move.
Instead, he concludes, “this is a propaganda program, used by the administration of Vladimir Putin as one of the aspects of the pre-election presidential race which is beginning now in Russia.” It may make for good public relations, but it is not something likely to have the consequences Moscow says it hopes for on the ground.
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