Paul Goble
Staunton, October 3 – Reflecting the deterioration in relations between Ufa and the Muslims of Bashkortostan, the new republic head has renamed and taken direct control of the agency responsible for supervising religious affairs there, a move that could presage similar changes in other Muslim republics of the Russian Federation.
Like most of these republics, Bashkortostan has had a Council for Religious Affairs attached for the republic government since the end of Soviet times, but now the new republic president, Rustem Khamitov, has renamed it the Council for Government-Inter-Confessional Relations and attached it to his own office (www.bashinform.ru/podrob/305279/).
Vyacheslav Pyatkov, the head of the council, told the Bashinform.ru news agency that Khamitov was devoting particular attention to religious affairs because “a constructive dialogue between the state and the representatives of various confessions is important in our days as never before.”
On the one hand, he said, “the reorganized Council has been dealing with the resolution of a large number of problems” left over from the previous regime. But on the other, the Council chairman suggested, “Russia has encountered a global confessional problem. And this problem is Islam.”
“Of course,” Pyatkov quickly added, “the issue here is not in the religion itself.” But “unfortunately, there are people are trying to distort this religion and force it to serve their criminal goals,” with evidence coming in each day about “acts of force and terrorism which are carried out supposedly under the banner of Islam.”
Some of the responsibility for this development, he said, lies with the government “which not always and everywhere turns out to be capable” of dealing with the problems of young people. But “no less responsibility” for this trend is born by “spiritual leaders” who have failed to act in ways that assure them of “the necessary authority” among young people.
Such problems have been frequent in the Caucasus “for the last two decades,” Pyatkov continued, “but in recent times such organizations under the cover of Islam have sought to develop their activity also on the territory of our republic, a region where the followers of Islam and Christianity have lived in peace and harmony already more than 450 years.”
Indeed, the Council head said, “the events of last summer show that attempts at the explosion of gas pipelines and the murders of imams are completely possible also with us,” in Bashkortostan, a danger that the state and the spiritual leaders must oppose lest “such pseudo-religions survive in our society.”
“Our task,” he continued, “is to introduce ideological order in the republic. Although on the whole we have such order.” Among the most problematic areas, he said, are those far from the capital of the republic in which there is now “a far from simple economic and spiritual situation.”
Pyatkov added that “of course, the struggle with bandits which plant explosive devices on gas pipelines will be conducted by law enforcement organs and the special services.” The Council on State-Inter-Confessional Relations will use “more peaceful” means and conduct “an ideological struggle” through meetings and the media.
Pyatkov suggested that his agency would focus on the young so that those entering on adulthood would reflect before entering a path of extremism that could lead them to “nothing except punishment and shame.” And he stressed that “a believer is a patriot,” who will “never turn arms on his fellow citizens.”
But even as Pyatkov was giving his interview, some 120 Muslims, most of them young, were assembling in Ufa to protest what they said were “an increasing number of arrests” and also “illegal actions toward them from the side of the state organs,” including the arrest of publishers and editors (www.rslt.ru/ru/news/.view/id/625/).
And while most of the protesters were restrained in their criticism, some shouted “Allah is Great,” carried the flag of Saudi Arabia (the homeland of Wahhabism), and called for an end to “falsification of criminal cases against Muslims.” Not unimportantly, no representatives of the official Muslim establishment were present.
This combination of greater official attention to Muslims and greater activism among Muslims in opposition to the actions of the state suggest that Bashkortostan, long noted for the relative peace among its historically moderate Muslim community, may be changing in ways that point to more clashes ahead.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Siberian Identity Drive Reflects Continuing Impact of Soviet Approach to Russian Nation, Moscow Commentator Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 3 – Because the Russian Federation inherited from Soviet times a system which deprived the Russian nation of any “mechanism permitting it to defend its interests,” ever more people who should identify as Russians are choosing to identify as Siberians or Ingermanlanders, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an essay on the “Chastny correspondent” portal today, Aleksandr Khramov says that in most countries, declarations about nationality “would be of only ethnographic interest. But Russia is a special case,” one where “since Soviet times, the state has been organized on the basis of nationalities (www.chaskor.ru/article/russkie_i_ili_sibiryaki_20207).
That means that Tatars or Chuvash or Chukchis are interested in maximizing the number of those who declare for their titular nationality in order to achieve more influence and resources, he continues, but this reality extend to all nationalities except one – the ethnic Russians – because the Soviets and now the post-Soviet government never gave them an ethnic territory.
On the one hand, this means that ethnic Russians lack many of the reasons members of other groups have for declaring their nationality in the census. And on the other, it means that groups within that ethnos such as the Siberians are seeking to promote their identities in the hopes of acquiring an autonomous territory.
In the Russian Federation census later this month, Khramov argues, ‘there is every chance that in Siberia there really will appear a new people – the Siberians. How large it will be is difficult to say, but one thing is clear: Russians as a people at the level of subjects of the Federation do not have a mechanism permitting it to defend its interests.”
“And the more people who recognize that fact, the more Siberians or Ingermanlanders (as certain residents of St. Petersburg and its environs call themselves) will appear.” That is a reality that most Russian nationalists refuse to understand, Khramov says, even though the evidence for it is overwhelming.
The Tatars of Tatarstan have been able to keep more profits from the oil industry than the Russians of Siberia because they have the institutional and political mechanisms to do so, and even the numerically small Evenks have been able to block the construction of a hydro-electric dam they don’t like while the much larger Russian community has not.
That reality rather than some “splitting of a single Russian nation” is what explains the Siberian drive, he says. But there is more to the issue as well, Khramov argues. “In the Russian Empire there was an effort to create ‘an all-Russian nation’ of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Great Russians.” But it “failed.”
“A new effort to construct a Russian nation was not undertaken,” he says, “and the majority of so-called Russian patriots up to now continue to discuss matters in all-Russian categories,” adding that “as a result, the Great Russians up to now have not been transformed into a single nation but rather remain an amorphous mass without rights.”
Indeed, Khramov continues, “those who see the Russians as some kind of ‘product of empire,’ formed in its depths are incorrect: the empire sought to build an all-Russian nation but it was not able to achieve that, and the Russian nation (itself relative to that project a form of separatism) up to the present simply has not taken shape.”
Because the Siberian “nation” movement highlights that reality too, it has drawn fire from many “nationalist” groups, including from the Russian Orthodox Church which has its own concerns about the census, fearful that if the percentage of those declaring themselves to be ethnic Russians declines so will the status of the Church.
That is because the Moscow Patriarchate has insisted that all ethnic Russians are to be counted as Orthodox Christians because that faith is the traditional one of the Russian nation, a claim that sociological research does not support but one that the powers that be in Moscow find comforting at least so far (news.babr.ru/?IDE=88695).
There is a way out of the current identity crisis, Khramov says. “If the Russians of Siberia, sensing their attachment to the Russian nation, receive the opportunity to defend their regional interests through effective federal institutions, the regional Siberian identity will remain an important element of the Russian nation,” instead of powering the rise of a Siberian “nation.”
For many in Moscow, such demands for genuine federalism are yet another reason to campaign against declarations of Siberian nationality, but those behind that campaign are certainly playing to it. One activist says that all Russians should declare their solidarity with Siberia by declaring themselves Siberians in the census as well (globalsib.com/8434/).
Staunton, October 3 – Because the Russian Federation inherited from Soviet times a system which deprived the Russian nation of any “mechanism permitting it to defend its interests,” ever more people who should identify as Russians are choosing to identify as Siberians or Ingermanlanders, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an essay on the “Chastny correspondent” portal today, Aleksandr Khramov says that in most countries, declarations about nationality “would be of only ethnographic interest. But Russia is a special case,” one where “since Soviet times, the state has been organized on the basis of nationalities (www.chaskor.ru/article/russkie_i_ili_sibiryaki_20207).
That means that Tatars or Chuvash or Chukchis are interested in maximizing the number of those who declare for their titular nationality in order to achieve more influence and resources, he continues, but this reality extend to all nationalities except one – the ethnic Russians – because the Soviets and now the post-Soviet government never gave them an ethnic territory.
On the one hand, this means that ethnic Russians lack many of the reasons members of other groups have for declaring their nationality in the census. And on the other, it means that groups within that ethnos such as the Siberians are seeking to promote their identities in the hopes of acquiring an autonomous territory.
In the Russian Federation census later this month, Khramov argues, ‘there is every chance that in Siberia there really will appear a new people – the Siberians. How large it will be is difficult to say, but one thing is clear: Russians as a people at the level of subjects of the Federation do not have a mechanism permitting it to defend its interests.”
“And the more people who recognize that fact, the more Siberians or Ingermanlanders (as certain residents of St. Petersburg and its environs call themselves) will appear.” That is a reality that most Russian nationalists refuse to understand, Khramov says, even though the evidence for it is overwhelming.
The Tatars of Tatarstan have been able to keep more profits from the oil industry than the Russians of Siberia because they have the institutional and political mechanisms to do so, and even the numerically small Evenks have been able to block the construction of a hydro-electric dam they don’t like while the much larger Russian community has not.
That reality rather than some “splitting of a single Russian nation” is what explains the Siberian drive, he says. But there is more to the issue as well, Khramov argues. “In the Russian Empire there was an effort to create ‘an all-Russian nation’ of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Great Russians.” But it “failed.”
“A new effort to construct a Russian nation was not undertaken,” he says, “and the majority of so-called Russian patriots up to now continue to discuss matters in all-Russian categories,” adding that “as a result, the Great Russians up to now have not been transformed into a single nation but rather remain an amorphous mass without rights.”
Indeed, Khramov continues, “those who see the Russians as some kind of ‘product of empire,’ formed in its depths are incorrect: the empire sought to build an all-Russian nation but it was not able to achieve that, and the Russian nation (itself relative to that project a form of separatism) up to the present simply has not taken shape.”
Because the Siberian “nation” movement highlights that reality too, it has drawn fire from many “nationalist” groups, including from the Russian Orthodox Church which has its own concerns about the census, fearful that if the percentage of those declaring themselves to be ethnic Russians declines so will the status of the Church.
That is because the Moscow Patriarchate has insisted that all ethnic Russians are to be counted as Orthodox Christians because that faith is the traditional one of the Russian nation, a claim that sociological research does not support but one that the powers that be in Moscow find comforting at least so far (news.babr.ru/?IDE=88695).
There is a way out of the current identity crisis, Khramov says. “If the Russians of Siberia, sensing their attachment to the Russian nation, receive the opportunity to defend their regional interests through effective federal institutions, the regional Siberian identity will remain an important element of the Russian nation,” instead of powering the rise of a Siberian “nation.”
For many in Moscow, such demands for genuine federalism are yet another reason to campaign against declarations of Siberian nationality, but those behind that campaign are certainly playing to it. One activist says that all Russians should declare their solidarity with Siberia by declaring themselves Siberians in the census as well (globalsib.com/8434/).
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